No flame war here. All we need is good and rational discussion.
If James Rossi is here willing to answer some questions, let’s be kind enough to hear what he has to say.
-edit-
As I am responding I am going to try to get to everyone I can, but if I disappear or begin to ramble it’s because I am on 3 and a half hours sleep in 48 hours. So I apologize.
@Codes
I appreciate the concern, but I have to admit that I played a large role in the final tone of the review and obviously I stand by it or I’d not be here.
I think it important to be said that I have no problem with anyone who has enjoyed the mod. Many of my friends have enjoyed it, or are enjoying it, and our difference of opinion doesn’t change my views on them one bit. The standards I hold Black Mesa up to are my own and I do not feel they are better, more educated, or more refined than anyone elses. I am fond of them though, as they are mine.
One part of the review which we did not emphasis enough, as it has turned out, is what we are comparing Black Mesa to, which is directly the original Half-Life. I felt that many of the changes made (aside from most of the clearly impressive visual upgrades) simply made for a lesser game experience.
@Picklesworth
I could not agree more. Unfortunately a conceit of our video reviews is that time is important. Our initial drafts and notes would have resulted in a video likely nearly 30 minutes long. In no small part thanks to myself as when I get going I enjoy writing. I am however very glad that we cut some of it down as I got carried away with some of my comparisons. Had we the capability to go back I’d like to include more samples and examples of different issues.
For the changed weapon placement, this I do not feel as strongly about myself as some of the other contributors did. I appreciate what the developers were going for in altering how the player approaches the initial levels, though. Delaying the use of the crowbar for so long felt artificial though. For instance, why didn’t Gordon grab a chair and use that instead? In HL we get the crowbar before we’d ever want to resort to other tools. In BM we get the crowbar long after any normal person would have been smashing aliens with telephones.
@Problematic A-hole
I will not claim to be a great voice actor but I do actively participate in the field and not in just news reports. I’ve been active in free amateur voice audio productions for years. Been listening to old radio shows for as long. I have also done sound work for mods and audio productions myself acting as a director.
I know what you can get out of amateurs. In particular the man who voices Kleiner is someone I am working with on another project. His Kleiner was really strong, but at times lacking. I don’t feel that he is to blame however. Someone is supposed to help and support these actors, to bring out their best. It is hard to do a good acting job in a room, alone, away from the actors, unable to feel the set, to know the sets not even REAL. I did voice direction for a mod and well frankly I let my volunteers down. I did not give them the context required. I did not give them the needed cues, segues, and suggestions. As a result the dialogue is odd and stilted and it is 100% my fault. I find similar flaws in many of BMs scripted events. I know how they happen, and I know that they shouldn’t. It does a huge disservice to the actors who I KNOW are capable of better.
People say it is free, and that I should not expect Professional Quality. Just because the people involved in BM were not paid does not mean they themselves are not every bit as capable of doing a job as good if not better than the original Half-Life. I apologize for the rant but as a voice actor this part got to me. I’ll get off my pedestal.
Well, this is not surprising at all. The first forum thread over there about the release announcement for Black Mesa is titled “Black Mesa:Vaporware” with some posts there clearly showing intention of waiting around for the release just to badmouth the mod. One or two was from article writers. They later put up also an official news post but didn’t bother to moderate the old thread.
Whatever, I guess they never got over being told off about the leak. I’ve only known valvetime since a few months ago through the publicity it gained from leaks (Black Mesa and Episode 3 stuff). I am not gonna bother with them any time soon.
@OldDirtyBastard
I have to admit I am far from an authority on comments made by the developers. I definitely will take your word about Breen and Magnusson. It does open an interesting question though. I think it is safe to assume that a majority of players will not know that the developers actively chose not to include these characters for the reasons they have. Instead people will largely come at it from the same angle I did which is that it is in established canon (as much as I hate bringing up canon discussions) that Magnusson was the man in the break room whose food was ruined. Eli and Kleiner (the real one) are both in BM and they only became real characters in HL2. So there’s already the conceit of including later characters into the remake. Now not knowing the reasons behind it I can’t comment on whether I’d agree with them or not, but a precedent is established even very early on that actual characters from HL2 exist here in BM, as seen with the security guard talking about Barney.
@Conti
Much appreciated, and thank you. I promise to remain civil.
@Jeannotvb
Fortunately I was under no delusions that our review would dissuade anyone from playing. In fact I have absolutely no desire to dissuade anyone. People SHOULD play this mod. Just be ready to deal with some things, that some people, have taken some issue with. If anything I find going into a game expecting a more realistic experience helps me enjoy something more easily.
Credibility seems to be a topic of heavy discussion at the moment. Obviously you wouldn’t throw yourself or VT under the bus, but I imagine you can appreciate some raised eyebrows when you release a review casting a fairly sweeping negative view on many aspects of the mod, and quickly glossing over any positive points.
Reviews are opinion pieces, and every reviewer goes into an experience with his / her own bias. I’m just not certain that it was stressed enough ( … or looking back, at all ) that there was no ill intentions or preconceptions going into the review. Given the lack of this acknowledgment, and the content of the review…you’d kinda have to see where a lot of people might have some legitimate concerns, yes?
Wow way to take a review like its the only review and it means everything and you must go by it, so what if they did not like it move on and listen to another review make your own.
Every reviewer has different tastes and ways of seeing things, they are entitled to their own opinions and if you do not like it do not watch it.
Just because you like the game does not mean everybody HAS TO LIKE IT and if they do not they suck, learn to accept other peoples tastes and opinions.
Do not get me wrong i like the game, but i do have to agree with some of the points in the review. And i think Valve Time and James did a good review and had both good and bad points witch are all very valid.
I usually never watch reviews about games before i play them, because a review should not dictate or affect how you MUST like the game. And if you liked the game and the reviewer did not than make your own review!
I don’t recall Laidlaw confirm it the same way he did this with Vance and Kleiner.
It’s clear whoever wrote this from VT has some anger towards the BM devs, all I want to know is “why”
Chill the heck out, kay.
This doesn’t help at all, only incites more mutual hatred.
Fine
I think it’s unfair to involve their “grudge” against Black Mesa and it’s team while commenting on the review, whether it played a part or not. I am kind of disappointed in them for focusing so highly on the negative, and dismissing the positive and the few rare gems. Most of what they said I don’t agree with in the slightest. I have to give them that the design of Lambda was a tad too detailed and made it a bit difficult to find the objectives, but only that area. Performance issues were entirely on them, too. “Loading up a save only to have it crash 20 seconds later.” Pfft, I crashed once throughout my playthrough and it was only because Source doesn’t like it when I forget to disable my windows key.
The point is, whether they held a grudge and input it into their review or not, they brought up only the negative and hide the positive. When this shows the most (to me) is when they bad-mouth the voice acting but don’t give a sample or two as they did with the music (which they also downed).
Didn´t the guard in the break room mention Magnusson though? “Better get out or you´ll never hear the end of it.” or something along those lines. To me, that was enough.
As for the review itself. I strongly disagree with almost every point made in it, but it was a decent review. They expressed their opinion and I didn´t get the feeling they were biased. Just shrug your shoulders and continue to enjoy the mod, guys.
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@ShadowNate
I have to ask that you not equate the of opinion of the Valvetime community forums with the opinions of the Valvetime staff. Or vice versa, honestly. Not really fair to either of us. There are some writer comments in there.
And looking I actually see my post in there, but I’m not going to back peddle. If people want to, they can find it or link it. I was not out to get Black Mesa though. As silly as it is, I try to take my personal integrity seriously. Which I admit working for a video game site is pretty absurd. I do my best to set aside any feelings as I can. Had this been made by different people, with a different shared history, I’d have still felt the same. I work to being able to say that, and it is not always easy, not am I infallible.
@MaxTheLimit
You are correct that we gloss over the more positive points. It could have been expressed better. In my eyes the review begins as “Yes, the mod is beautiful, we all know this. There’s more to it though so let’s cut to the chase.” Because it is. Black Mesa is a very attractive game. There is astonishing talent behind it. Which is all the more disappointing for me that I did not find myself enjoying it as much as the content producers deserved.
Also, I totally get where people are coming from. I feel some are going a little too far, but the sentiment is completely understandable. We actually had to have a discussion about whether to post the review. Do we give a more positive review despite our feelings in order to prevent damage to people’s perception of us? Or do we go with how we feel and weather any storm should it come as best we can? I stand by our choice, and we knew that there was a chance for backlash.
@OldDirtyBastard
Been a long time since I heard anything out of Laidlaw to be honest. Maybe he’s trapped in a cellar cell until he pens his final masterpiece? That or I’ve been missing interviews with the guy which I would regret. He always seemed interesting.
That option is open to you. You get taught to pick up and throw objects early on if I’m not mistaken. In fact, I myself helped out the security guard in the corridor before the reception area throwing crap at the zombies. The flares are the most obvious object, but you can still chuck other things as its in the Source engine.
Im guessing the devs had a good laugh though, like common a B-, that has to be the most stupid review for a game i have ever seen. More detail went into this mod then any other mod to date and its on its first round of community testing. The complaint of crashing is stupid, I crashed 2 times in the entirety of the mod i can remember crashing every 15 minutes for half-life 2 and they are professional developers. Its just a grudge.
Who gives a crap about whether this or that guy who got his food messed up was or wasn’t in the game. Who cares that every single thing isn’t the same as in Half-Life 1. I started playing with an OPEN MIND, enjoying the mod instead of criticizing every single LITTLE DAMN DETAIL. This mod is more detailed than any mod I’ve ever seen or played. It was made for free. Why don’t you remake Half-Life and tell me what happens.
What if, in another universe time-line, Valve originally delayed the finding of the crowbar in Half-Life 1, and the differences between BM and Half-Life 1 were swapped? ValveTime would STILL focus and bash on the changes just because they aren’t 100% faithful.
And what makes me angry especially is the criticism towards the voice acting. Seriously guys? The voice acting is bad? And you’re telling me the voice acting in the original Half-Life was ANY BETTER? Hello!? Did no one realize the team purposely tried to recreate the tone set by the voice acting in the original? Hell, the voice acting in BM seems very genuine, often better than in HL2.
What I don’t get is how ValveTime managed to focus on the negatives literally over 90% of the video and ended up giving the game a B-. A B- is not a horrible score, but based on how pissed the reviewer sounded about every little “issue,” it seemed he was going to give a solid D+.
Oh, and I read the thread at ValveTime forums called “Black Mesa: Vaporware.” I am happy I am not a member there, as I am not a complete asshole.
Was there discussion about the possibility of acknowledging this in any way? In a way I can see why there shouldn’t be a need to defend integrity, but on the other hand it seemed obvious that people would make a connection and see the review being done with an axe to grind so to speak.
A lot of people seem to be talking about the yard stick you held Black Mesa to. Some claim you aren’t measuring it on the same scale as you have in past reviews of other mods.
I don’t really. Your post there wasn’t the one that showed bad intend towards BM before it got released. But for me it does speak volumes that for a Valve fan community the title of the thread remained “Vaporware”. You can say that I have serious issues with this term and its random/casual usage and it would be 100% true.
I’m sorry, I won’t post any links to your forum or site. If anyone wants to search it on their own, they can. It’s not ok for me to link people to your site anymore.
I also don’t consider it being a coincidence that, from that vibe I expected Valvetime’s review to head the direction it took, and even bothered to post a “heads up” at some thread here about the negativity I was detecting.
This is my personal subjective view of things. It’s my opinion, and it’s has been formed over the last month, so it can’t change anytime soon.