You’d rather I skip the infraction process and perma-ban you instantly? It’s easy enough. But you’re only one infraction point off a temp ban anyway now, so keep pushing and see if they still don’t scare you.
I’m actually looking forward to some great singleplayer mods, maybe one that features the Seven Hour War? They can use the HL2 assets for the urban setting and Combine, and the BMS assets for the HECU Marines and Xen aliens.
Or how about a singleplayer mod set during/after HL2 but with the Xen aliens included? There could be a rocky gorge along the coast with a Tentacle or something.
Why does it always have to be multiplayer mods? I mean, to each his own, but come on! 90% of all mods are multiplayer, and 90% of all singleplayer mods either suck donkey ass or never make it out of conceptual design phase. Only a very small percentage of all mods are great singleplayer campaigns.
On a wee side note, it’s not my place to say wether or not the BMS mod team should allow their assets to be used in other mods, but I think it’s a bit hypocritical of mod teams (not just the BMS team) to deny others the right to mod a game (in this case BMS) while they themselves have enjoyed that privilege. The Silgrad Tower mod for Oblivion is doing the same thing.
And even though BMS won’t be using as many HL2 assets like originally planned, they are using some (Headcrab, Barnacle, …) not to mention the Source engine and the Half-Life IP belonging to VALVe.
Besides, nobody who’d try to pass of BMS assets as their own work would get away with it, unless they’d alter those assets beyond recognition, everyone will recognise them from BMS and call that person a fraud.
Just my 2 cents 
Here’s where you fall short. It is not their right to mod things. It is a priviledge handed out by the creators of the content themselves. Valve gave people to the priviledge of modding their creations. BM is made up of almost completely of content they created. They have decided as a group to not let others have the priviledge of using their stuff in other mod, as far as they can help it. Their goal isn’t just a mod, but to recreate something special. If all of their content was to spread to the 4 winds of modding and be thrown into mods where the creators don’t want to bother with creating the content themselves, there wouldn’t be much originality with other mods, and BM’s content wouldn’t be so special anymore. Most single player mods as you said are crap. Using the same stuff as Valve and using them in completely unoriginal ways. Guess what would happen to BM’s stuff? The exact same thing. These people, who have worked for about 5 years on this so that the community could have a faithful recreation of the greatest game ever, should have their wishes respected regarding their content.
Also you pretty well resurrected a pretty dead and decayed thread there dude.
That doesn’t even take into account that in order to take advantage of the nice mod policies that valve has, you actually have to pay them by buying one of their games. The BM devs aren’t being paid anything for their work. So, no. It’s not really hypocritical at all. It’s a matter of a service you have the privilege to enjoy after paying the company, and something you just want from someone else for free.
Exactly, VALVe was so gratious to allow people to mod their games and use their assets, so I think it’s a bit hypocritical of those mods not to allow others the same privilege they themselves “took advantage” of (I don’t mean this in a negative way).
And they are using some assets, even if it’s just one or two, and they’re using someone else’s IP for their mod. Even if VALVe allows this (which, so far they have) it’s not like BMS asked for permission… they just used it for the mod.
Even if 90% of said mods that use BMS’ assets suck bollocks, even if only one or two such mods are actually any good, that’s still worth it to me.
Allowing people to mod your game (or mod) has some risks, I agree. But it also allows people who don’t have the technical skills and who don’t have a big team, but who have got a great idea, to make a mod.
Anyway, it’s not my call to decide wether or not to allow people access to the BMS assets, it’s just that I don’t think that people will just use those assets in their mod and pass it of as their own work. I’m sure they’d all gladly acknowledge the BMS team for their effort and dedication.
Sorry, I hadn’t noticed, the thread was still on the first page and I assumed it was still recent.
Firstly, single-player is harder to do, so that’s why multiplayer is done more often and why single-player mods are often poor.
Secondly, the devs have no problem with people making extra maps/campaigns and mods for/to Black Mesa, that require Black Mesa to be installed to play. What they have a problem with is a mod or content pack that takes Black Mesa content and repackages it without permission. So for example if someone made a seven hour war mod that only required HL2 to play yet the download contained BM models taken from BM and repackaged into the seven hour war mod files, that would be essentially theft. You compared them to Valve, but Valve would be just as down on a mod which repackaged their content so that it could be used by players who didn’t have the game it came from, with the exception of the shared content in the Source files. So BM can reuse things from HL2 like headcrabs and vorts even if the person using the mod doesn’t have HL2, because they come packaged with every Source game that includes the SDK, but they’d come down on BM like a ton of bricks if for some reason BM included models from Left 4 Dead that could be played with by people who didn’t own that game. Same thing here.
Though it’s probably inevitable, they’re not keen on people packaging up BM content for use in GMod. Even if whoever does this first does credit the team it’s unlikely that every person who makes a video or picture or webcomic or whatever with it will do.
EDIT: The issue of credit is more complicated that whether people pass off work as their own. On the flip side, if they DO give the mod credit, but themselves do very poor or offensive work, the mod will become associated with this bad or offensive content through no fault of the BM devs and with no way of quality controlling what their work is used in or how it’s presented.
@LG:You are missing the point of my post entirely. To use Valves material, and mod their work, you have to have paid them. What does the BM mod team get from the people who use their work? They aren’t charging, so not money. The difference is that Valve has already been paid by their user. BM devs would be letting people take credit for their work, and getting nothing back.
But the point I am trying to make is that it is in no way hypocritical for the dev’s to make that decision. [edited for bogus contrast as pointed out by Bean] As I said it is their decision and it should be respected.
Edit: Ninja’d by two, but my post is still relevant for getting across the point I was trying to make in my earlier post.
As I just pointed out, this supposed contrast with Valve is bogus. The BM devs and Valve actually both have essentially the same stance on this issue.
Well alright then. I know the decision is theirs, I just wanted to convey my point in that I don’t think people will just ravage this mod bare and claim they made it themselves.
I can only hope that when a mod team comes by that wants to do a great singleplayer mod using some of their assets that they’ll allow it on a per request basis or something.
Am I talking to myself? I just said a) the problem with credit could be BEING given credit on a project they really don’t want to be as much as it could be having their work passed off as some else’s (did you read my edit above? Example: someone makes a GMod picture of BM soldiers gang-raping Alyx and prominently credits BM and the dev who designed the soldier - can you see why they wouldn’t want to be associated with that?) and b) people are perfectly free to make kick-arse single-player mods based on BM content, as long as they require BM to be installed instead of including BM files in their own packages, which is exactly the same way mods of Valve games work (those HL2 headcrabs and vorts will be nowhere in the downloaded BM files, they’re already on the on the hard drive of anyone with a SDK-included Source game).
Does anyone remember how BM used to use, along with the shared source HL2 models, a load of CounterStrike: Source assets? The reason the devs went to great efforts to replace all those assets with custom content was because by using them they would either have to require that all BM users have [noparse]CS:S[/noparse] installed which would limit their userbase and piss some people off, or they would have to package up the [noparse]CS:S[/noparse] files into the mod and that would get them shut down by Valve because it would be theft.
If the BM devs are being unreasonable then so are Valve and pretty much every commercial game developer ever.
Best case scenario would be if this mod goes commercial, then it would no longer be just a free mod but a paid game. And we’d get the same modding privileges as with any other commercial Source game
Now they are talking, i mean the people will try to mod bms after it release.
What was so hard to understand about raw_bean’s explanation? The modding privileges described for Black Mesa aren’t any different than any other ‘commercial Source’ game.
(First post! OMG! So hopefully I was right… :retard
Welcome to the forums, Will
yeah, one can make a mod for the game and release it
just as long as they do not make money from it.
What Lord Grievous meant was that if BM were to be a commercial game, it could be modded in the same way other retail games like HL2 can.
Despite privileges or stances on modding, that is not the case now.
Same as HL2
:hmph:
No. The source code of the mod would still not necessarily be released even if it were a commercial release, just SDK support for making new content for it. Let’s use an example - the source code for Left 4 Dead isn’t available, just the ‘authoring tools’ which is essentially just the Source SDK, for making new content for the game. The SDK being used for BM is already available - it’s the Orange Box SDK. The amount you can map/mod for BM is probably comparable to the amount you can map/mod for Left 4 Dead, and that would be the same whether the mod was commercially released or not, in all probability.
HL2 is a special case as a large portion of it’s code and content is available to all Source mods as it’s bundled with the Source SDK/SDK Base content. Basically, all Source mods are, in a way, also HL2 mods and all Source games come with a certain amount of HL2 content for free use. With all other Source games, that is not the case. So while I believe you could make a CounterStrike: Source mod that included headcrabs, a CounterStrike: Source mod couldn’t be made to include Day of Defeat: Source or Left 4 Dead content without requiring that you also have those games installed, for example. Black Mesa will be like those games, not HL2.
EDIT: technically Nosehole, HL2 is a little different. You can use some HL2 content in a mod of any SDK-equipped source game that you own, not just HL2 itself. Hence why BM will not require HL2 to be installed, but just any SDK-equipped Source game.
As a caveat I’m speaking as a modding virgin (well, I made a short Doom WAD back in the day, lol), but I’ve been around a while and I like to think I’ve picked up a reasonable layman’s understanding of this issue.
:facepalm:
I don’t know how else to phrase it, but you already do have the same modding privileges as with any other source game (which is to say access to content from that game on computers that have it installed, along with access to some shared content from HL2). If you still can’t understand that then it’s beyond my powers of explanation.
Welcome to the forums Will. Glad someone understood me, thought maybe I was speaking in tongues or something. 
I stand corrected, thanks Bean!