Nightfall Post-Mortem

Ennui

Ennui

The Freeman
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Moddb.com has just posted an excellent article about the development and eventual abandonment of the highly-anticipated singleplayer modification NightFall, which a few resident forum members have been involved with in the past. The article, written by a past team member, details the reasons the mod eventually failed and is full of never-before-seen concepts and screenshots. Definitely worth a read. An excerpt:
Most mods fail. The reason why and what lead up to this is ignored, instead we move on to a new mod only to have it make the same mistakes. Today we look back at one mod, and try to make sense of Cato the Elder's famous quote: "wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."
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Check the article out here.
 
Great read. ETA on Black Mesa's post-mortem?
 
Cool stuff. Glad they took my suggestion for a Post-Mortem, at least this way something good will come from the mod (for the general public, that is, I'm sure the team gained a lot on a personal level).
 
Funny. I was actually speaking to Cremator like a few days after it had been announced abandoned and I didn't even realise it. Hadn't spoken to him in over a year, as well. Which was rather odd.

He said it's shelved, btw, so don't lose all hope. Although that's not much to go off. I remember him showing me the first screenshots of it. Quite depressing.
 
Is this Post-Mortem only of the HL2 stage of the mod? I don't see any HL1 media.
 
Interesting read, pity all that effort went to waste. Interesting to see that the first problem cited was the lack of a clear and detailed design document from the offset.
 
Been there done that, I have been part of 2 mod teams, the first d.e.a.d which died out for alot of the same reasons nightfall did. It basically all boils down to how committed your team members are more than anything and how reliable they are.

Example with Neotokyo, we are a skeleton crew but probably have more content created between all of us than most released hl2 mods. Know who you are working with and keep a small team if possible, get the best of the best, thats the key to making it to release.

Im surprised when I see huge mod teams actually make it to release mainly because those are the mods who seem to rely on public spotlight to stay motivated. Everyone wants to work on a mod that is always in the spotlight pimping media, but the ones that work behind the scenes are the ones who stand a better chance on releasing because the members working on it are there for the mod, not for the publicity or to be popular.

I think if I was to offer any input to that article I would say dont bother with media updates until you are almost ready to go public with a release. With media comes forum traffic and hype and fanboys, followed by an influx of would be modders wanting to be part of a popular new exciting mod aka bandwagon modders as I like to call them.

Theres a few "popular" mods that I know people are jacked up about but imo they are just going to disappoint or not live up to the hype they generated. Modding for source is not easy, in fact its a total pain in the ass. The fact that most people expect retail quality in mods today does not make it any easier.
 
It would be awesome if the Nightfall team released all of their content like Isotx did with their abandoned Zero Hour mod recently.

Yorick said:
Words can't express how much I love you
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This is exactly how I felt when I read 6Three's post too.
Insano said:
Is this Post-Mortem only of the HL2 stage of the mod? I don't see any HL1 media.
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I think you're confusing Nightfall with some other HL mod. Nightfall was only HL2. I do know what you're talking about, and the name is very similar to Nightfall, but I can't remember what it is. IIRC the mod you're thinking of was abandoned as well.
 
Yep, that's it. I kept thinking Night's Edge, which was a weird cyberpunk-esque UT mod.
 
Can't say I've heard of the Mod, but its practices sound like those of many a good-looking mod that has appeared in the news pages...
 
Ennui said:
This is exactly how I felt when I read 6Three's post too.
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I understand the BM team has a very, very ambitious project on their hands, but I haven't heard any news suggesting they are not doing so well tackling the task.

Can anyone fill me in? Thanks.
 
I do remember Nightfall had some awesomely awesome maps for it. Awesome considering they were for HL1.

Edit - Oh, that's Nightwatch. I don't know what the heck Nightfall was all about.
 
Ennui said:
It would be awesome if the Nightfall team released all of their content like Isotx did with their abandoned Zero Hour mod recently.
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Have faith my dear Ennui
sshpf5.gif
 
If they do that, I hope they keep some evidence of their origin. There are so many asset thieves in any mod community. *Googles 'neoheavy' on fpsbanana*
 
TheSock said:
I understand the BM team has a very, very ambitious project on their hands, but I haven't heard any news suggesting they are not doing so well tackling the task.

Can anyone fill me in? Thanks.
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I don't wish to turn this into another skeptic BM discussion, but essentially I feel like Black Mesa, if it does make it to release, will be nothing so epic as it's being hyped to be.

CREMATOR666 said:
Have faith my dear Ennui
sshpf5.gif
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I do, actually. That post could have just said "*cough* KREMATOR *cough*.
 
art13kl1.jpg


It's doing stuff like that mods really need to avoid (By that I mean two things: silly hype/overdone posters and having Amckern on your project).
 
Samon said:
It's doing stuff like that mods really need to avoid (By that I mean two things: silly hype/overdone posters and having Amckern on your project).
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I couldn't agree more. Also, I ignore just about any team trying to form some studio before they even release any work. It's about time that these people's design philosophy INCLUDES the reliability of the team instead of ignoring it so that they can have time to create a forum that NO ONE will post on. Also, have none of them heard of diminishing returns? I just wish being imaginative was as much of a drive for these people as regurgitating the formulaic is.
 
ericms said:
I couldn't agree more. Also, I ignore just about any team trying to form some studio before they even release any work. It's about time that these people's design philosophy INCLUDES the reliability of the team instead of ignoring it so that they can have time to create a forum that NO ONE will post on. Also, have none of them heard of diminishing returns? I just wish being imaginative was as much of a drive for these people as regurgitating the formulaic is.
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<3 :cheers:
 
ericms said:
I couldn't agree more. Also, I ignore just about any team trying to form some studio before they even release any work. It's about time that these people's design philosophy INCLUDES the reliability of the team instead of ignoring it so that they can have time to create a forum that NO ONE will post on. Also, have none of them heard of diminishing returns? I just wish being imaginative was as much of a drive for these people as regurgitating the formulaic is.
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Oh so true.
 
At least we Kremator's super pro leet skills on our team now. :D
 
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that he's working on HLSS with you guys.
 
Listen old man, everyone knows you have awful taste in things though *cough* AVP2 *cough*. ;)
 
Old? Old? I'm barely 70!
 
It's dead? Aww...I came across Nightfall's website a long time ago, and I remember the mod really impressing me. Oh well.
 
Can't we get those maps that are done to play with?
 
There are rumours of them releasing some content (if they haven't already).
 
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