Black Mesa Source

    Looks awesome!

    I asked on Twitter and didn’t get a response, but what about mods for Black Mesa? Your tech is really exciting, it would be fun to do a map pack. What do you think?

    Quote from FMPONE

    On 12/23/2018 at 8:33 PM, FMPONE said: Looks awesome!

    I asked on Twitter and didn’t get a response, but what about mods for Black Mesa? Your tech is really exciting, it would be fun to do a map pack. What do you think?

    Obviously everyone on the team is in support for making the game as moddable and open as possible with sdk tools and documentation on all the new stuff. Youll be able to make anything you normally can on valve source engine games. I would love to do map pack related things (like csgo updates you mean right?) but stuff like that is still up in the air. We'll have to gauge the community interest somehow first.

    I personally want to continue to produce more SP content for the game post xen release so I am in support of any community that aims to do the same.

    Quote from RaVaGe

    7 hours ago, RaVaGe said: Hey JP ?

    Yo!

    Quote from JeanPaul

    1 hour ago, JeanPaul said: Obviously everyone on the team is in support for making the game as moddable and open as possible with sdk tools and documentation on all the new stuff. Youll be able to make anything you normally can on valve source engine games. I would love to do map pack related things (like csgo updates you mean right?) but stuff like that is still up in the air. We'll have to gauge the community interest somehow first.

    I personally want to continue to produce more SP content for the game post xen release so I am in support of any community that aims to do the same.

    Yo!

    More of a technical question, I suppose. If the BMS team would be supportive of Total Conversion type mods that use the Black Mesa tech to package a new experience, that would be ideal IMO.

    I guess my question was more geared to how you can release a mod of Black Mesa (as long as you have purchased the game and have it installed on Steam). Would be nice if there was a way to create a Steam page for the mod, I've seen a bunch of HL1 and 2 mods doing that.

    Like this: https://store.steampowered.com/about/communitymods/

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/587650/HalfLife_2_DownFall/

    Not sure if possible, but also giving a shortcut and have a menu to download the best custom maps available on the workshop would be kinda cool.

    Ive been thinking of returning to my original HL1 mod since Black Mesa was announced to get a proper release on Steam.

    Quote from FMPONE

    On 12/27/2018 at 1:31 PM, FMPONE said: More of a technical question, I suppose. If the BMS team would be supportive of Total Conversion type mods that use the Black Mesa tech to package a new experience, that would be ideal IMO.

    I guess my question was more geared to how you can release a mod of Black Mesa (as long as you have purchased the game and have it installed on Steam). Would be nice if there was a way to create a Steam page for the mod, I've seen a bunch of HL1 and 2 mods doing that.

    Like this: https://store.steampowered.com/about/communitymods/

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/587650/HalfLife_2_DownFall/

    Im pretty sure this is a thing you can do with any source engine game so I am sure we will have the support for it as well. (on both points you brought up)

    Our workshop might be a bit in shambles (last I checked) atm but it takes a load of programming power to get working properly so its on our immediately to do list once we release xen.

    We want to support mods and mod makers as much as possible so any additional input people have in this realm will definitely be listened to.

    Quote from JeanPaul

    10 hours ago, JeanPaul said: Im pretty sure this is a thing you can do with any source engine game so I am sure we will have the support for it as well. (on both points you brought up)

    Our workshop might be a bit in shambles (last I checked) atm but it takes a load of programming power to get working properly so its on our immediately to do list once we release xen.

    We want to support mods and mod makers as much as possible so any additional input people have in this realm will definitely be listened to.

    Sounds great, it might be really fun to make a mod for Black Mesa then hook it up to Steam like that.

    Just beat Xen. Overall, impressed with the experience.

    I think it was guilty of perhaps trying to do *too* much, it felt a bit overstuffed and repetitive at times in terms of always having three distinct puzzle triggers, always dragging sequences on too long, always wearing the player out. Gonarch Lair felt endless at times. Nihilanth is an OK boss fight, but like a lot of Xen, felt overpacked and over the top. I think if you look at Nintendo boss design for example, it’s a bit more segmented out into digestible chunks, this one just felt like it was slapping you in the face with stuff for the sake of impressing you, not allowing you to breathe. I think Xen was simply too long given how abstract/alienating it felt to be in that kind of environment. It starts out on an incredibly high note, slows down a great deal in the middle and wears you out by the very end.

    Replaying Black Mesa completely probably contributed to these feelings. I disliked Residue Processing, that chapter should have been cut or significantly reduced, it slows the game down to a glacial pace. Blast Pit was far more tedious than it needed to be. And Lambda Labs, while it has some awesome memorable moments, also has some more tedious machine-enabling that you’ve already done enough of by that point. I was completely sick and tired of the Earth environments the game was presenting me with long before Xen, there wasn’t enough editing. The first portion of the game also looks noticeably worse now beside Xen.

    Overall, I think Black Mesa is very good, stunning for a community project. But as a game in and of itself, it just needed much more editing and not continuously try to justify itself by padding the length out so much with trivial tasks. Fans of the original would say this was cutting too much, but it *needed* those cuts, badly. The game could have used a lot more exposition, vistas, and far fewer busy-making tasks. You can really feel the lack of other meaningful characters, and how that dates the game quite a bit.

    It felt great to immerse myself in the Half-Life universe again, but I can see why Valve decided only VR would be suitable to bring Half-Life back. These games consist of novel ways to press the player forward, and I think many of the best ways have already been explored in the traditional game format: Black Mesa includes every single possible permutation of how to unlock a door, climb into a vent, boot up a machine, enter a portal, etc.

    Playing this game felt really cathartic and reaffirmed that the community is capable of much more than people think, but I doubt a Half-Life 3 following the same pattern would have lived up to the hype — we know the formula to the recipe by now a little too well.

    Quote from FMPONE

    15 hours ago, FMPONE said: The first portion of the game also looks noticeably worse now beside Xen.

    I haven't played the game a lot (and not yet the beta for Xen), but since Shawn has been working on Black Mesa a lot it would often find its way into our conversations, and at some point I also wondered how the old chunk of the game would compare.

    It turns out this is clearly the case, but it was inevitably going to look outdated in contrast. I think the minimum requirements for the first part of Black Mesa Source are now far too low if you compare it with the Xen chapters. Regardless, it does look like an incredible improvement and I should really get myself to play it asap!

    Quote from JorisCeoen

    6 hours ago, JorisCeoen said: I haven't played the game a lot (and not yet the beta for Xen), but since Shawn has been working on Black Mesa a lot it would often find its way into our conversations, and at some point I also wondered how the old chunk of the game would compare.

    It turns out this is clearly the case, but it was inevitably going to look outdated in contrast. I think the minimum requirements for the first part of Black Mesa Source are now far too low if you compare it with the Xen chapters. Regardless, it does look like an incredible improvement and I should really get myself to play it asap!

    They could have hired a couple of people to polish the first half of the game. There are stock HL2 assets in there, and custom stuff that’s not much better. Then there are also the rough sound effects (shotgun in particular sounds pretty clippy), and clunky weapon switching. It’s not the super polished feeling experience now that it was a few years back when it first came out, it’s a bit clunky at times.

    As the game is a commercial product I’m just evaluating it on those lines, but the real context is that the first half is a community mod for sale, it’s probably not fair to expect a new Xen and a repolished first half. But having played through Xen which felt a little bloated at times, maybe in hindsight that’s one approach they could have taken instead.

    I did notice some new sprites they were using everywhere that looked pretty nice and helped modernize the old chapters pretty nicely as for lighting. Source aged well in terms of particles/effects IMO, some of those hold up pretty well. The rocket launch in particular looked better now, it looked great.

    Quote from FMPONE

    On 12/18/2019 at 10:14 PM, FMPONE said: It felt great to immerse myself in the Half-Life universe again, but I can see why Valve decided only VR would be suitable to bring Half-Life back. These games consist of novel ways to press the player forward, and I think many of the best ways have already been explored in the traditional game format: Black Mesa includes every single possible permutation of how to unlock a door, climb into a vent, boot up a machine, enter a portal, etc.

    Playing this game felt really cathartic and reaffirmed that the community is capable of much more than people think, but I doubt a Half-Life 3 following the same pattern would have lived up to the hype — we know the formula to the recipe by now a little too well.

    I just experienced VR for the first time today. I tried the Steam VR environments with teleportation movement, Ethan Carter with an xbox controller (my stomach) and Boneworks with continuous movement. The feeling of actually being there and interacting with the objects is pretty amazing. I can't believe how mind blown I was by throwing a rock. A GOD DAMN ROCK! And then in Boneworks when I used the jedi force pull to bring back the crowbar in my hand. I can see why Valve got hyped by this. However, motion sickness is a thing indeed. The continuous movement is just hard to handle. The way it fucks your brain because your legs are not moving is incredible. I tried to mimic a bit of walking in place to see if that does anything, but didn't help that much.

    I can imagine it being cool for some games, but not for others - actually the broad majority. Although it has potential, I'm still sceptical about it. I still think it's going to be something similar to how 3D is to films. It's very gimmicky and quite limited if continuous movement is not an option.

    And so I have to disagree with what you said about HL3 not living to the hype in any other way than being developed for VR. From my point of view, all Valve has to do is improve the combat, the way the weapons handle and the enemy variety, and go for a systemic approach similar to Bioshock or Dishonored. They had a good recipe with HL2 and kept improving on it all the way through EP2, which many consider to be better than the base game. If you take those improvements and combine them with Mark Laidlaw's epistle 3, I think you'd have a pretty darn good game. For me that's enough, making a good game. Why would that not be enough?

    Quote from Radu

    1 hour ago, Radu said: For me that's enough, making a good game. Why would that not be enough?

    I think there would need to be a radical re-thinking of the formulas that went into the Half-Life games. Not really on-topic per-se, but if you look at Black Mesa for example, the basic formula is something like 1) enter new area 2) fight 3) locked door has to be unlocked in some puzzle/combat way 4) encounter some vistas, friendly AI 5) move onto the next area. 99% of Black Mesa fits into that groove, and I think it becomes very samey after a while. When the game does mix it up, such as when Gordon Freeman gets "captured" or when some friendly AI stops your railcar and has forced dialogue, that's much more akin to how HL2 would break up the pace by having Alyx or some other AI talk to you. But generally speaking this level of variety is just not much compared to other full-price Single-player games these days.

    What do people think of as amazing, world-class single-player pc games nowadays?

    Something like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Skyrim or GTA5 or The Witcher or soon-to-be Cyberpunk, etc. They are not only mostly open world, but they have a level of replayability inherent in the experience. I think HL3 would need to have moved more in that direction rather than trying to do the Call of Duty route and just do "really polished" short SP campaigns, which aren't replayable and only barely justify their price tag. I think the HL style of games in the traditional format became too formulaic, too linear, and not replayable enough to sit comfortably by the open world games which really push the envelope for singe-player. When people think amazing single-player games these days, that's more what they think of IMO. The days of just a 16 hour linear campaign being enough to justify the HL3-level hype, to me those days are over. Even if those 16 hours were balls-to-the-wall, incredible, super polished... I just don't think that would be enough for all the hype. Again, all of this is slightly off topic, but since you asked, I thought I would elaborate a bit.

    As for why VR changes the calculus more than just more polish/production values, IMO filtering a time-honored formula through a totally novel headset adds enough benefits to be worthwhile. It's a format you're used to, but with all these little new gameplay experiences such as kinetic reloading, immersive presence, etc. Perhaps the most important point of all is, with VR, Valve is at least taking a risk with doing something new and exciting. With a HL3 that was mostly just what EP3 would have been, that's not taking any big particular risk, and it's a lot easier to make a case that's a let-down.

    Quote from FMPONE

    13 minutes ago, FMPONE said: Not really on-topic per-se

    What do people think of as amazing, world-class single-player pc games nowadays?

    Something like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Skyrim or GTA5 or The Witcher or soon-to-be Cyberpunk, etc. They are not only mostly open world, but they have a level of replayability inherent in the experience.

    Might be a bit of a stretch, but I think Black Mesa is a good opportunity to talk about this type of traditional design. Yeah, it doesn't offer much replayability. You can play through it once or twice and can say that you're done with it, whereas an open world game can offer sometimes an entirely different experience with each playthrough. But how many people even manage to get through to the end? This is entirely personal, but when games go over 15-20 hours, they become almost a chore to finish. Sure, there's some exceptions, like Borderlands, you do need a bit of a change every now and then. However, every Far-Cry game, although I've enjoyed, felt like it overstayed it's welcome after 20 hours. I would rather play something more directed that has a proper sequence of events and gets you to the end of the story. Since you mentioned "pc games" I can't really use Naughty Dog's games now can I? but I would point at those for more recent examples. Hell, take Titanfall 2 for instance. Its short 4 hours sp campaign is regarded as one of the best, which I have to agree with. Doom 2016, even more of a stretch back than Black Mesa or Half-life 2 in its design. And there's plenty of hype around the upcoming Doom: Eternal. As much as companies have shifted to big open world games (which are easier to monetise), there's still a big space to be filled by more traditional linear games.

    Regarding the hype, idk, look at every successful game/film sequel and what they did right. Take what made your game good to begin with, improve on the weaker areas and then add that extra something which might be what I was mentioning earlier - a systemic design or if you're into a more open metroidvania level design - maybe what Metro: Exodus went for.

    The VR might work for the novelty, but it's still gonna be limiting compared to traditional games. That's what kind of sits bad with me. We're taking a step forward when it comes to immersion, but taking one backwards in terms of gameplay. How will it hold out over the years, because HL2 still does even now, as rough around the edges as it may be.

    Quote from Radu

    3 hours ago, Radu said: Might be a bit of a stretch, but I think Black Mesa is a good opportunity to talk about this type of traditional design. Yeah, it doesn't offer much replayability. You can play through it once or twice and can say that you're done with it, whereas an open world game can offer sometimes an entirely different experience with each playthrough. But how many people even manage to get through to the end? This is entirely personal, but when games go over 15-20 hours, they become almost a chore to finish. Sure, there's some exceptions, like Borderlands, you do need a bit of a change every now and then. However, every Far-Cry game, although I've enjoyed, felt like it overstayed it's welcome after 20 hours. I would rather play something more directed that has a proper sequence of events and gets you to the end of the story. Since you mentioned "pc games" I can't really use Naughty Dog's games now can I? but I would point at those for more recent examples. Hell, take Titanfall 2 for instance. Its short 4 hours sp campaign is regarded as one of the best, which I have to agree with. Doom 2016, even more of a stretch back than Black Mesa or Half-life 2 in its design. And there's plenty of hype around the upcoming Doom: Eternal. As much as companies have shifted to big open world games (which are easier to monetise), there's still a big space to be filled by more traditional linear games.

    Regarding the hype, idk, look at every successful game/film sequel and what they did right. Take what made your game good to begin with, improve on the weaker areas and then add that extra something which might be what I was mentioning earlier - a systemic design or if you're into a more open metroidvania level design - maybe what Metro: Exodus went for.

    The VR might work for the novelty, but it's still gonna be limiting compared to traditional games. That's what kind of sits bad with me. We're taking a step forward when it comes to immersion, but taking one backwards in terms of gameplay. How will it hold out over the years, because HL2 still does even now, as rough around the edges as it may be.

    Ultimately I'm not sure yet another traditional sp campaign would really raise the stakes much. So, let’s say they did do a really nice Titanfall 2 style HL3... I'm not sure that would be that hype or new or different or exciting enough at this point, or even a few years ago. They themselves raised the stakes so much by delaying EP3 on and on, to the extent that they would really have to do something crazy. At least VR is a big enough risk to meet that burden.

    Replayed BMS to check out the new Xen part, and honestly the first part of the game hasn't aged well at all. And it's still the soldier combat that feels so lacking, no cool radio chatter, they basically out gun you from >15m engagement ranges. The submachine guns feels so bad to shoot, idk just didn't sit right at all. Xen on the other hand I am very impressed with. Looks great for a source game, and is a fresh take on the whole Xen part

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