Black Mesa Public Beta

Black Mesa Archive News & Developer Updates
#1

[align=center]Black Mesa Public Beta [/size]
Now in… well… beta.[/size][/align]
Hey guys!

Today we’re starting a small scale launch of the Black Mesa Public Beta. We’re hoping to use for more larger scale things, and more consistently in the future, but we’re going to let you guys try it out first and let us know… it’s like we’re Beta’ing a beta ish… thing… Yea. It’s Meta. If you like it, let us know. If you don’t like it, DEFINITELY let us know.

What is the Public Beta?
Much like other public betas you’ll see in other games, this beta is for testing out patches before they go live to the full client. This beta is completely optional and not recommended for people who don’t want to play potentially buggy aspects of the game.

Why are we doing this?
We’re busy folks and sometimes, we miss things. Sometimes, we miss a lot of things. This beta is just one more additional step to insuring we miss as little things as possible, after we test things. More importantly this allows us to test things on a wider range of computers and hardware than we currently have on our team. We said we wanted to try and include all you guys (yes, you. You in the chair) in development and be more transparent with how things are working behind the scenes.

If I find some bugs, where should I post about it?
We’ll be putting together a centralized place for you to put and report BUGS soon. This will not be for feature requests. If you have an idea for a feature that you think might help better and improve the game, let us know on one of the other subforums. For now, we just need you to check to make sure everything is working with our current patches. You can post any issues here, for now.

What does the Public Beta mean for the future?
For now, we’re just doing it to test patches, but that is not to say we MIGHT be using it to test Multiplayer maps, new gamemodes, or more… That “or more” bit, doesn’t include testing Xen. Sorry guys! When a public beta patch is dropped, there will be a post about it, and you’ll be able to play with it if you want. Right now, you cannot play multiplayer while in the Public Beta Branch, unless explicitly said, or you’re playing on a Beta Server… There are currently no Beta servers, so you won’t be doing anything with Multiplayer, just yet.

Awesome! How can I participate in Beta?
Glad you asked, Black Mesa fan! First off, you’ll need Black Mesa on Steam. If you don’t have that already, might want to get it. Right click on in your steam browser, click “Properties.” Go to the Beta Tab. Select “Public Beta.” You’re now in the Public Beta! If you no longer want to be part of the public beta branch, you can go back to the Beta’s tab under properties, and set your beta to “none - Opt out of all betas”

There’s more info coming along with this feature, if you guys like it, so let us know (also in this thread) what you think, or how we can use this better. If there’s something you think we should pay attention to, or use this for in the future (not for Xen!) let us know.

#2

Removed now as current build is on main build.

#3

As if you didn’t already have me at an implied bugtracker, you had to go and throw in your VMFs, too.

#4

I must have access to the bugtracker so I can report all the bugs!

#5

Try and contain your excitement.

#6

8o
Holy…

#7

All the SP vmfs?
Entity learning and architecture reference ahoy!

#8

Glad ya’ll are enjoying that.

Just make sure that those bug fixes actually work. Once that has happened, we’ll push the build to the main client and everyone can have dibs on the sourcefiles.

#9

I will have to look at these as soon as I clean my computer

I mean, you see, as a result of this sentence, this strange white liquid appeared all over my computer screen.

#10

Oh, damn! Ask and you shall receive, ye of little faith!
First thing tomorrow I’m gonna mess around with that lobby!
Just gotta avoid seeing anyone else’s versions. I tend to get discouraged when I see someone doing something that I love, but better.
Thank you!

#11

I’m speechless. Fuck. Thank you.

#12

Can you elaborate on these two? Everything else, I’ve either never experienced or seems fixed.

#13

The animation pop means that it would kick back to the start of the animation loop without completeing the loop first. Instantly arriving back to the start.
The texture was just wrong. (I’m not an artist, I honestly didn’t notice, but the other guys did, so I’m takin’ their word for it.)

Zombie Gordon hands are fixed?

#14

Huh, I hadn’t noticed anything w/ the Glock either. The slide’s spec looked goofily galvanized, but I assume that’s a design decision, seeing as it was in SP as well.

Can’t tell on the zombie, I clear out my Source game saves folders regularly. :c Sorry, that one slipped/

#15

Ain’t fixed to me, the Zombie Gordon hands.

#16

Could you provide either a save file, where it’s occuring or tell me exactly what you’re doing (like which chapter, etc. etc)

EDIT: Welp, I clicked the wrong thing and thats embarassing. Oh well. Enjoy the hilarity. See next post for what I ACTUALLY need.

#17

Could you provide either a save file, where it’s occuring or tell me exactly what you’re doing (like which chapter, etc. etc)

(Okay, THIS is the one I meant.)

#18

Whoops.

#19

It’s happened both in saves from Lambda Core and in Forget About Freeman, so I assume it happens in every save I have. These are from before the zombie hands content update, I assume that’s what the fix was for?

#20

Could you get us a save file and upload it somewhere for us to test with?

Save files are located in SteamApps/Common/BlackMesa/bms/save

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.