I too would appreciate it if you guys cut the animosity towards the devs as well. That wasn’t why I created this little mod. Although it does confuse me that “set ichtyosaur health to 300 using skill.cfg” threads are allowed in the Cafeteria but this thread is not, that’s fine - if it doesn’t belong there, it doesn’t belong there. I made this second thread in the cafeteria for the purpose of promoting my work to a wider audience as it’s by far the most active subforum, and the one pretty much anyone who visits these forums will most likely first visit. I figured it wasn’t a problem as the 115 page thread in the Leak-Free forum was dedicated pretty much entirely to development discussion rather than any other type of discussion about the mod.
I would appreciate it if you moved it to the “Show Off” subforum. Though I would have preferred it to remain in the cafeteria it is, ultimately - your house, your rules. There isn’t much point having two threads here on Leak-Free.
On the subject of this, I was totally blown away by this, I was chuffed to bits when I saw it this morning. Really seriously wasn’t expecting it! This should also help me build some hype for OaR Uncut, which may help motivate me to get it finished too!
While this (along with the work on OaR) addition is a “spin-off” (of sorts) to the mod to re-add the cut sections, the “re-adding” is considered to be fan-made and not* part of the official mod. Therefore, Show Off is the appropriate section.
Changing .cfgs and such to alter the mod, such as setting health of the ichthyosaur, is still using the original mod. Therefore, Cafeteria is the appropriate place for that kind of thing.
So, let’s stay on topic. Let’s talk about Surface Tension Uncut and not where or why the thread was moved. Thanks!
* Currently; the developers may provide these “cut” sections as a companion download similar to how Valve took Team Fortress and made it their own, but who knows. I don’t have any inside knowledge on that.
While I find it unlikely that OAR Uncut will be included in the official release of BM by the devs, as long as the devs aren’t stupid or prideful to a fault, I think Surface Tension Uncut will be added to the official mod with Text’s permission. After all, they’ve admitted that the omission of those areas of Surface Tension wasn’t an intentional choice; it was the result of intervening circumstances.
A few bits seem a bit under Black Mesa’s level of quality. They may have been modified (I only played the first release) but I doubt it. Also the Xen fauna littered around conflicts with Black Mesa. Those are from what a dev said was simply scientist reproductions as apposed to actual Xen fauna. I wouldn’t mind seeing the addition to Black Mesa, but I wouldn’t hold it against then if they don’t include it, which is the most likely scenario. It is unofficial work, after all, and they might want to keep mapping and level design to be dev work only.
ST Uncut is easily BM-quality; when I replayed the game with Text’s maps installed, they stood out as one of my favorite segments of the game. As for the inconsistencies with Xen fauna that will be introduced when Xen comes out, I’m sure the BM devs can work with Text when Xen releases. And it’s completely retarded how you say “dev work only”. You’re treating the devs like they’re some magical fantasy race that’s superior to mere humans like me, you, and Text. Hell, Text has outclassed the “official” Black Mesa devs here. I might have some more comprehension of your point if Black Mesa were an official Valve game, but we’re not talking “corporate programmers and modders” here. We’re talking “modders and other modders”.
First release? Which first release? Public release 0.8, official release 1.0, or final release 1.11? Saying “they may have been modified, but I doubt it” seems a tad rude. The mod’s been modified MASSIVELY from each version so it’s important you’re clear which version you’re talking about here, otherwise your criticism is completely baseless.
To put it into clearer perspective, there were 5 releases in between 0.8 and 1.0.
There were 4 releases in between 1.0 and 1.11, the current final version.
Thus, unless you are talking about the final, current version, your point has no basis, as even 1.0 and 1.11 are worlds apart, and any of my testers will also verify that.
Of course I’m not saying that your opinion is wrong and that it’s wrong to say that you think my work isn’t up to scratch. But it’s a bit ignorant to base criticisms on what you’ve seen in an older version, should that be the case. Though I am very biased and it is just my personal opinion, I believe that my work is at least at Black Mesa standard - not because “I’m a fantastic mapper” or any other arrogance which people choose to project on me, but because of the fantastic rapport I’ve had with this insanely critical and wonderful community. No other maps on Black Mesa, even official work, have received the same level of community feedback and scrutiny, and that’s what makes me feel my work is at the very least, up to scratch. Not through my work. But everyone elses’.
As for the whole official dev vs unofficial dev thing, I find that distinction, as Maxwell does, to be wholly irrelevant and quite frankly, stupid. What’s the point of having cut content in a supposed “remake” of Half-Life 1, solely on a principle which has no grounding in reality anyway? There’s no “us and them,” we’re all just modders, making stuff for the community, for free. It seems arrogant to the point of stupidity for them to ignore my work solely on that basis. Don’t get me wrong, there could be any number of valid reasons why they don’t want my work, but if the reason is ONLY because I’m not an official dev, then frankly, it’s moronic. Of course I don’t hold anything against the BM Devs. It’s their work, they can do with it as they please. I never expected anything I did to ever get implemented anyway. But as a pragmatist myself, if someone did my work for me, I’d take it! This ain’t a business endeavor, there’s no shame in it whatsoever.
As for the whole Xen Flora thing, whatever. The Xen Moss which I use can be seen on Forget About Freeman too, so it hardly conflicts with the rest of Black Mesa. And while it may otherwise “conflict with Black Mesa,” it AGREES WITH HALF-LIFE, which is the game Black Mesa is supposed to be remaking. In HL1 the Xen Flora appears sporadically throughout Surface Tension and FaF, normally accompanying a jump-pad but not always. Thus, I don’t really see how that can be a serious problem either.
Has ANYONE officially made any comment to that effect? No, the decision to move the thread was made by a moderator and I have since moved the thread to somewhere more amenable for everyone. This was not based on any directive from a dev and any suggestion that they are ignoring your work is pure guesswork. They are busy getting Xen and the end of the game finished and aren’t even, for the most part, around the forum. I have no doubt that when the time is right they will recognise your work. So EVERYONE, stop this baseless whining, it just makes YOU look bad.
You’ve misinterpreted what I was saying. Read it again. Though I may not have made it as clear as I should have, I was speaking in hypothetical - it was about IF the devs believed that rather than saying they DO. I don’t think that they DO.
This had absolutely nothing to do with the moderators moving my thread and I never once alluded to that anyway. I already stated above, in an earlier post, that while it was a tad perplexing, it really didn’t bother me a great deal, and I certainly don’t believe it was a big dev conspiracy or any bollocks like that.
I never once stated that the developers made that comment either, specifically about my work not being dev work and hence not being included for that reason. It was Crypt who made that comment and I’ve heard it from several others. This is why I brought it up. I don’t like that viewpoint, so I was countering it. I wasn’t anywhere suggesting that it’s what the BM Devs actually believe.
People have been projecting that “us vs them” viewpoint onto the devs that they would think that ANYTHING the community does, not just this, won’t be incorporated into the game at any point, because it’s not official dev work. I believe that such a viewpoint is narrow and foolish, but perhaps I didn’t put that across correctly. I WAS NOT saying that the devs believe that, nor did I imply that ANYWHERE. I was saying that I think that such a narrow viewpoint on the part of the community is wrong, and that I don’t believe the devs think that - it would be far too narrow minded of them. I was saying (and I did directly state this) that there is almost certainly any number of very valid reasons for them not wanting to include my work - and that’s fine. My implication was that IF THE DEVS WERE TO BELIEVE THAT (and I don’t think that they do, everybody bear that in mind!) it would be foolish and will simply hinder them from creating a better product.
I’m not whining, not in the slightest. As I did say in that post as well, I personally don’t really care if they ignore my work, they owe me nothing and they owe the community nothing either. I was replying in comment to Crypt, I wasn’t addressing the devs.
Before I go, I wanna say if this starts sounding rude, it’s not intentional.
Anyway, I apologize for putting my opinions the way I did. By “I doubt it,” I was going on the idea that many mods and games that I’ve played tend to focus more on fixing bugs than bits that didn’t feel up to par. And I agree that I should probably have played the latest version before making assumptions, but you don’t have to be so defensive about it. I did specify that only a few bits seemed to not be up to par, but considering you’re assuring me that the versions are so far apart than this may not be the case anymore. You’re acting like I said your work was bad altogether. Considering a shit load (thousands? millions?) of people think Black Mesa is so amazingly great - including me - you should still feel like your work is good if your only just under that level of quality.
I’m also not trying to project the devs as “magical” or any of that sort. I’m simply saying that not only are they not accepting maps to be implemented, (that should be enough for my point, anyway) but this is such a large portion of the game that I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t wish to implement it. Not everyone wants to take large additions to their game, quality is irrelevant with this point.
It’s not about them being messianic or anything, because they’re not, they’re just people with talent. It’s about Black Mesa being their team’s game. Valve may be famous for taking in people’s work because it’s good, but you never hear, “This guy’s good with Cryengine! Crytek should hire him!” But you hear that type of thing everywhere with Valve and it’s modding community. But there’s something about the Black Mesa Team: they’re not Valve. I’ve seen people mentioning the Hazard Course project as hopefully being implemented, which I think is just as unlikely, if not more so. Same with that Blue Shift game. As far as they’re concerned, it could simply be “other people’s mod’s using our assets.”
I won’t focus on the question of quality here, because that’s already addressed. If you think parts of the work aren’t up to scratch, that’s cool, I won’t be able to persuade you otherwise. So we can leave that issue behind as it will probably just cause aggravation. I probably shouldn’t have been as defensive as I was, but, hey, it’s my work, I’m allowed to get a bit touchy about it.
Let’s focus on the question of the team implementing not just my work, but works from the community as a whole. Here’s one thing which sets the Hazard Course and ST Uncut very far apart from other works like Uplink/Blue Shift, and any other community mods - we are both recreating things which were ACTUALLY IN HALF-LIFE 1. Black Mesa is supposed to be a remake of Half-Life 1, yet it’s distinctly incomplete in that regard. Xen, is understandable, they’re still working on that - but the omission of Hazard Course, the chapters from OaR and ST, is very puzzling. I understand the team may very well have their reasons - but at least from my perspective it seems fairly perplexing to intentionally leave parts of the original out in what’s supposed to be THE DEFINITIVE remake. I’m not suggesting “Warts and all,” but it seems a tad haphazard to intentionally leave stuff out in a remake. Most HD remakes replicate their original games EXACTLY in this regard, but Black Mesa is supposed to be a step above a typical HD remake, and it certainly is. Which is why I find it bizarre that it falls slightly short on the simplest hurdle of HD remakes several leagues below it.
Again, I just want to make sure everyone knows I’m not crying “Black Mesa needs to implement my work or it’s bad.” Quite the opposite. They can do whatever the hell they like with it, it’s their work, and I never expected anything from the devs anyway in that regard. I’m quite happy to have my little mod sitting where it is right now. But, let’s think about it pragmatically for a minute here. There are a few possibilities which exist currently, with regards to Hazard Course/ST Uncut/anything else from the community (such as re-animations/reskins/remodels, etc etc):
They implement things like that into Black Mesa, perhaps with a bit of tweaking here and there. The mod now has more quality content with minimal work from the devs. Seems to me like everybody wins here.
They do not implement any community works, and instead do those works themselves. Sure, that’s fine - but it seems like a waste of time FOR EVERYONE when the work has already been done once. In the end I guess there’s still more content in Black Mesa, but their time might have been better spent elsewhere. I personally will be quite angry if their next update includes THEIR OWN take on the cut ST chapters/Hazard Course/whatever. Not because they didn’t choose to include my stuff - but I’ve seen quite a few devs in my forum thread - I would have very much appreciated a heads-up “by the way, we’re already working on this, you might be wasting your time” from them.
They do nothing involving community works. Black Mesa is now intentionally left with less quality content, purely because of principle. It’s still a fantastic game, no doubt, but…doesn’t necessarily live up to what it could be.
It would be best to email the project’s leader. Also, the only reason for I see they wouldn’t want to include community work is a possibility of a dispute about license/ownership rights.
Like:
(BM) “we proudly present the finished Black Mesa mod after work has concluded on Xen and DM along with restored ST and OaR”
(x community work creator) “hey, credit me, it’s my work!!!”
(BM) “but our assets!!!”
Get it?
That shouldn’t be an issue. Black Mesa was released under a Noncommercial Creative Commons License, and I made sure to release my final ST version under the same license too. They’re quite free to incorporate my work into their own, even without my consent. The only “legal” requirement, as far as I can understand, is that I’m credited. They’re free to modify and use my work however they wish, as long as I’m credited, from what I understand. And that seriously shouldn’t be an issue either, it literally involves adding my name to the credits, and that’s it, which shouldn’t be objectionable at all. The same would apply to any community made works, assuming they released them “correctly”. But, licensing is a very complicated issue, so maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.
The only potential issue I can see in terms of license/ownership rights could possibly due to their agreement/contract/whatever with Valve, which would happen as a result of them being Greenlit and eventually ending up on Steam. That could possibly cause issues, but I just don’t know. I’ve seen plenty of Steam games incorporate community content with very little problem, and those were commercial titles, rather than free Source mods.
This is all speculation, in the end. But it’s an interesting debate, I suppose.
Ur right, even the Greenlight might have changed things a bit.
About crediting, there’s also a custom furnace model in your “mini-mod” I doubt they would want to credit 5 or more people that weren’t even official devs. But I don’t know more shit about it than you do. But as you said, if they had any problems with it’s existence, they would have said something long ago… so it’s best either to contact them or to wait till they release an update and then act.
I created the custom furnace model myself. There is ONE SINGLE small piece of work in my mod that was done by someone else, everything else I did myself. One Free Man, from Facepunch, fixed the broken UV mapping on a stock Black Mesa model for me. Thus, we are the only two who would require crediting - and in all honesty the BM Dev team could fix the UV mapping in about 10 seconds themselves if they didn’t want to credit yet another person - so it shouldn’t be a problem, as stated.
We’ll just have to wait and see. And I did already contact them, by applying to join the dev team. I’ve received total silence on that front, so I assume it to be a no.
Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are arguing over. The Test Chamber subforum proves that they wouldn’t discard community work off-hand purely on principle. They have actually asked the community to contribute to the mod, as they have done in the past as well.
Also, don’t be discouraged by silence. That’s how it’s always been with the dev team, as far as I’ve heard. Communication is not their greatest skill, it seems
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.
