A growing concern, and how we can help

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

I first learned of Black Mesa Source’s existence in 2007. Needless to say, as any self-respecting Half Life fan I probably…no wait… did orgasm in my own pants. Being a long-time player of game mods the idea of a project as huge as Black Mesa was, and still is the stuff that legends are born into. 2009 came and went as everyone here very well knows (so no need to repeat the details). After that I, as many others in the casual gaming/mod world checked back less and less for updates regarding BM. I completely understand the devs’ reasoning for lack of updates or info regarding BM. I may not agree with one or two of them, but this thread is not about whether or not I agree with their reasoning.

I can just speak from the perspective of having many friends and colleges that never come on the forums or visit the site. With that being said, in a world where word of mouth does as much for advertising any game, I have noticed a drop in anticipation amongst the kinds of pc gamers that take a more casual approach to gaming, whether due to their professional or personal lives.

This is what concerns me. I do not want by the time Black Mesa Source is finally released for their to be less fans bowing to the sheer glory that will be BMS due to a decreased amount of interest. With a mod this close to release (whenever it might be) wouldn’t it be nothing but beneficial to do something to add to the power that the word of mouth carries in the gaming community. It seems only logical to continually be trying to pull in new potential players into being fascinated and interested in this mod.

With this I pose this question…

Is there anything WE can do to help pull more people in, as well as keep people who already about BMS still interested?

This can be instigated and/or fostered by the developers of any game. But it can also be fostered by the community closest to said game’s development. If the dev team chooses not to release new media or information regarding BMS, then doesn’t it fall to us as gamers that want to see this mod succeed to help bring fellow gamers into discovering/rediscovering Black Mesa Source?

Rubs Bengay on hands as carpal tunnel sets in

#2

Nope.

#3

Everyone on the whole moddb/steam/internet would probably know if the mod is released

#4

They’ll all come around when the mod comes out, don’t worry.

#5

Every gaming news site will report BM’s pre/release in a matter of seconds and everyone’s interest will re/surge once more.

But I guess it doesn’t hurt to help in that endeavor.

#6

I’ve seen plenty of people say they’ve ‘given up’ on Black Mesa, and when it’s released they won’t even care. But that’s a load of bullshit, you know those same people are thinking about the mod all the time, and constantly need to remind themselves they ‘don’t care’ by posting it places. But when the mod is released those same people are gonna be swarming the website. And yeah, that goes for gaming news sites too. Everyone, even non PC gamers and gamers in general are gonna know about it. And if they don’t found out right when it happens they’ll find it eventually. And even if people don’t know, what’s the point of trying to pull people in? You don’t pay for the mod. The number of downloads doesn’t affect anything.

#7

Yeah, no good can come from promoting the mod at this point -before its release or official announcement of such. It will just give more ammunition to trolls, and feed pointless speculation about release dates.

#8

Not true there comes a time that the game engine is just too old. It was new when it came out. It is now already very old compared to all the games now on the market and each year the distance is getting bigger and bigger. How many people want to play a game with graphics from 7 year old even when it’s free.

I am a fan, but already i am not intrested anymore as i use to be.
Compare Deux Ex from 10 year ago and the one from last year. I tried it but just isn’t worth it anymore it looks to bad. And i guess i am not the only one.

#9

Yeah, fuck the plot or the gameplay mechanics, graphix is there it be at!1

#10

So maybe the graphics whores won’t be joining in but it’s not like we need that kind of shallow people playing this mod, do we?

#11

/thread

#12

If you’re gonna whine about graphics than you don’t belong on this thread, so just go on your merry way.

#13

Yeah totally, I don’t want to be shallow. They should just scrap this and rework it on Atari. I cant stand games that look awesome, good graphics? Pfft. Fuck all that noise.

#14

Wow seriously, they didnt just port the maps from hl1 into hl2 with new textures. They actually redesigned most of it. Adding new gameplay (or better) mechanics etc. And that is the fun part, playing the mappers new gameplay, exploring new areas, playing with fun mechanics, and yes, enjoying the new eye candy (think of bullsquid goo xD). Basically enjoying the genius that these mappers and modders have put into this game. And actually I disagree, I think the graphics are epic. Yes, there are games which cost a lot of money which have awesome graphics, e.g. skyrim, but that’s not the point, it may look nice but surely if the gameplay aint good you would care more than the graphics. See, you are shallow if you think graphics matters the most.

tl;dr We enjoy good graphics too, but we have our priorities straight, gameplay is more fun/important.

Ok, did you hear what I said or shall I repeat it?

#15

How are they gonna do it? They’re gonna PS/2 it! Seriously though, I’m not convinced by a single person on here that speaks to the age of the game engine or it’s so-called limitations. Or those that say it’s not worth playing because the source engine is old. Guess what, skeezik?! You registered at BMS because you found it accidentally or one of your buddies told you about it, and now you want it worse than Lady Gaga wants to be hot AND talented. I know you have this page bookmarked and typically check it before FB or email or anything else. Or it’s your start page. I know you sit there slavering away like one of Pavlov’s pooches when there’s a scrap of new media or a webmaster alludes to the short wait we all have before we can mount this mod on our hard drives and fuck for glory.
The point here is simple, I guess. You may successfully BS yourself into believing that it’s old degenerate crap. However, you will not convert any of the faithful to your cockamamie graphics-based Scientology, and the second it’s available you’ll curse every old component on your mobo for not extracting the BMS files at light speed. How’s that Dutch Pimp-Hand treating you? Worth every penny, right?

#16

I don’t understand the “bms has outdated graphics” complaints. A lot of games considered modern over the past few years all have similar polygon counts and texture resolutions, we’ve just gotten very clever with post-processing and lighting effects to give the illusion of realism. The only thing I see source lacking is proper dynamic lighting and giant level streaming, but everything else looks fine. These guys don’t need to worry about a consoles texture or memory budget so they are pushing the engine much harder than most commercial games do. I bet if the devs added sunshafts, heavy motion blur, and DOF you’d see half of these complaints go away because a lot of them just don’t know any better. Maybe if I was 13 years old and only knew what COD was then I’d only focus on graphics.

And as for people loosing interest, here’s one hint why:

690×888 50.4 KB

No room for discussion anywhere, just a whole lot of white noise. A webmaster tossing a bone to the community and then getting shutdown by the dev team. So it’s back to business as usual, “when it’s done” and “about 7”. I’ve been watching this mod for a long time so it doesn’t bother me, I honestly can’t wait to play it and I love the devs for keeping at it over so many years. But I can see how a lot of this is a huge turnoff to people outside of these forums.

#17

So, it’s a turnoff. So what? My guess is that it would be even better for them if they left this place to rot completely, ditching the overhead of maintaining this mess.

#18

They should delete all those threads, they’re clogging up the forums. It should be neat and empty.

#19
  1. gtfo
  2. Even HR looks outdated.
  3. gtfo
#20

thats not what I meant :frowning:

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.