Black Mesa mod first release announced

[ríomhaire]

The long awaited Source engine remake of Half-Life is finally due to see its first released on the 14th of September. The Black Mesa website has been replaced with a simple countdown timer with twelve days left on the clock. Clicking a fold at the top right of the page takes one to a copy of Gordon's conformation of employment letter from the original Half-Life manual, but with the signature altered from "LM" to "tb".
[box=right]
Vortigaunts, AKA "alien slaves", make their return as enemies.[/box]
The team leader, Carlos Montero, clarified on the forums that the team are still working hard on Xen and the multiplayer portion of the mod and that this release will be an approximately ten hour campaign spanning Gordon's Black Mesa commute all the way to the Lambda Core.

The full soundtrack has been put up for download to whet your appetite for the mod and other than listen to it on a loop until the 14th there's not much you can do but wait until the first release becomes available for download.

 

[Stylo]

After all the foaming about the game footage release, that soundtrack is sounding freaking epic.

 

[Danny_ZQ]

what do you wanna bet that valvetime is gonna crash any moment now?

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Awesome!! Can't wait! Have been waiting on and off since 2004.

 

[Omnomnick]

what do you wanna bet that valvetime is gonna crash any moment now?

Why would it? This isn't an announcement by us or anything of that caliber.

 

[Tense]

YES, is all I have to say. I haven't been following this Mod as long as some people, but I'm still happy to see the long wait is over. Hopefully it was worth it.

 

[Medevila]

About time

 

[Russian Mafia]

It will be great to finally play this!

 

[Damic]

Anyone seen the letter in the right corner http://blackmesasource.com/bmrf-employment-letter.pdf signed tb, who's that????

 

[Solver]

Nice!

I've been following this ever since they begun development. I know this site has some naysayers of the mod, but I believed and still believe that taking HL and putting it on a modern engine with slightly modernized level design would result in a great mod. From what footage I've seen, it appears that the Black Mesa team has done a good job at staying faithful to HL while bringing it into the current generation. I hope that is indeed so. HL, as good as it was, was in the very infancy of story-driven FPS games, and in a few places the level design was still closer to early 90s. As for the soundtrack, beating Minerva will be pretty difficult.

 

[Zephos]

I don't understand, we are nine posts in and it's all for the positive. Where's the standard (rather tired) vitriol from the Valvetime.net anti-Black Mesa squadron?

 

[Damic]

I don't understand, we are nine posts in and it's all for the positive. Where's the standard (rather tired) vitriol from the Valvetime.net anti-Black Mesa squadron?

we have put them in a test chamber with no exit:rofl:

 

[deer]

omg omg omg ...

 

[ríomhaire]

Anyone seen the letter in the right corner http://blackmesasource.com/bmrf-employment-letter.pdf signed tb, who's that????

It's mentioned in the news post. It's the same letter that came in the original Half-Life manual with a few modifications.

 

[Russian Mafia]

I don't understand, we are nine posts in and it's all for the positive. Where's the standard (rather tired) vitriol from the Valvetime.net anti-Black Mesa squadron?

They are all in THIS thread.

 

[Damic]

@riomhaire: doh was to exited to just check the website and forgot to read further here

BM Website has changed again: vote them up on Green light

 

[TheWiktor2]

I thought they are releasing the whole mod, but this is awesome as well

 

[thegeekykid7]

This is probably the closest thing to ep3 we'll get until valve actually releases said game lolz.

 

[ríomhaire]

This is probably the closest thing to ep3 we'll get until valve actually releases said game lolz.

How is this in any way like Episode 3?

 

[Petran]

They are doing exceptionally well in the GreenLight votes! It's great to see that the interest and enthusiasm for this mod is so strong that surpasses everything else currently there.

 

[Texter]

Yeah but they still need all the votes they can get... And now the Steam Community is back up again I'll supply a to the Black Mesa Greenlight PAGE

 

[Eejit]

Colour me unsurprised, the high hype level for BM:S is not astonishing.

 

[Schru]

Modifications do not belong on Steam Greenlight; I think Valve are still considering what to do with them, as obviously the community is interested in them. However, I think there are too many issues associated with opening Steam to mods for it to happen now and by such means.

In regards to Black Mesa specifically, it is sad that it is garnering this much attention in comparison to other entries. It is based on Valve's creative work and popularity it accumulated.

 

[ríomhaire]

Valve have yet to take down the mods that have been posted (and they've taken down plenty of stuff, Seduce Me seems to be the most controversial so far) so they seem to be ok with them for the moment. As for it not reaching the votes yet, nothing has. Valve intentionally made the initial number of required votes to get into the pending section insanely high because they didn't know how much traffic they were going to get from this. This seeing what the spread of votes projects get is like and will be adjusting the threshold downwards based on that.

 

[Schru]

I realize that no modifications were taken down, hence I wrote that Valve are still probably considering what to do with them. I also know that Greenlight is in a beta stage, and so the behaviour of ratings percentage is subject to change.

I just think that the reasons behind popularity of Black Mesa are shallow, and that it is a shame that it places so high relatively to other projects.

 

[Texter]

In regards to Black Mesa specifically, it is sad that it is garnering this much attention in comparison to other entries. It is based on Valve's creative work and popularity it accumulated.

It wouldn't surprise me if Slender: Source is such a success (top ranked at 31%) because it's the 'next game in queue' for EVERYONE. So basically its success is caused by a -deliberate- glitch in the system. Unless everyone really thinks it's fricking awesome of course...

 

[ríomhaire]

It wouldn't surprise me if Slender: Source is such a success (top ranked at 31%) because it's the 'next game in queue' for EVERYONE. So basically its success is caused by a -deliberate- glitch in the system. Unless everyone really thinks it's fricking awesome of course...

The queue is programmed to give you a couple of high-ranked games and a couple of recently added games. The top games showing up on everyone's queue is not a glitch, it's working as intended. From the news post: "This view is a mix of popular games and new games to Greenlight."

 

[TheWiktor2]

What the hell?! Black Mesa had 32% on Greenlight, and suddenly it came down to 14%!
It's either a glitch or Valve wants to censor it (although the first option is more likely to be true, the second may be possible as well :/)

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Or it's that they're adjusting the overall voting percentages, you know, like they said they were going to.

If Valve wanted to "censor" Black Mesa, they could and would have done so via a simple letter, much like they got them to drop the "Source" part of the name. There's no conspiracy here, climb down off the cross.

 

[Russian Mafia]

Says they are at 33% for me.

 

[Stigmata]

Or it's that they're adjusting the overall voting percentages, you know, like they said they were going to.

If Valve wanted to "censor" Black Mesa, they could and would have done so via a simple letter, much like they got them to drop the "Source" part of the name. There's no conspiracy here, climb down off the cross.

This is pretty much the case. They had to drop the "Source" suffix because it gave the impression that Valve was involved with the development and release. As far as I know this is the only applied limitation, Valve has otherwise condoned Black Mesa.

 

[ríomhaire]

This is pretty much the case. They had to drop the "Source" suffix because it gave the impression that Valve was involved with the development and release. As far as I know this is the only applied limitation, Valve has otherwise condoned Black Mesa.

They also asked them to use all original assets. No sounds or textures from Half-Life 1 or 2.

 

[Barnz]

There are models from Half-Life 2 (and Counter-Strike: Source) in Black Mesa.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Which is fine as long as they're mounted from GCFs, and not included with the mod itself.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I don't understand, we are nine posts in and it's all for the positive. Where's the standard (rather tired) vitriol from the Valvetime.net anti-Black Mesa squadron?

hi yes this mod is great lmao


I'l dl it and see how it really is myself. Soundtrack is still complete shit.

What the hell?! Black Mesa had 32% on Greenlight, and suddenly it came down to 14%!
It's either a glitch or Valve wants to censor it (although the first option is more likely to be true, the second may be possible as well :/)

You're an idiot. Go to hell.

 

[Warped Dan]

love the soundtrack, for free its a great deal.

 

[ríomhaire]

Which is fine as long as they're mounted from GCFs, and not included with the mod itself.

They're saying all you need is Source SDK Base 2007 so anything that comes in that is fine. Don't have a clue what's in there though.

 

[Cleric12]

Yay.

As if this mod doesn't deserve praise just because it's re-imagining an existing game.

 

[Eejit]

It deserves some, but much less than if it was actually original.

 

[ramsfan]

Black Mesa Source has officially been greenlighted by steam. Looks like it will be on steam after all.