Has the mod team received any recognition by Valve since release?

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#41

I don’t think you know what a remake is, nor do you seem to have a basic understanding of what makes something bad

#42

Remake and HD port are 2 different things, play HL: Source dude

#43

They added rooms in Sector C to make it look like a lab and people are actually working there and not just a scientific museum/gallery with computers.

parts of a On A Rail got cut because it was a labyrinth in HL. This time it’s a one way path to the rocket.

#44

One character with voices you dislike (amongst the rest of the amazing VA), a difficulty level that you can’t handle and areas redesigned to make more sense make this worse than the original?

You hate puppies, too, don’t you?

#45

@all: Do not feed the troll!

remember:

  1. Do not argue with trolls — it means that they win.
  2. The harder you try, the harder you will fail.
#46

Harsh maybe, but it’s what I think of it. They’re bad.

The mp5 is really awful and I feel the magnum different from the original and not very comfortable to use. Medium is hard, and Hard is too hard. Easy is ridiculously easy in some situations and yet a little bit hard in others.

I’ve to agree.

That said, I liked the mod, but it could have been done better, definitely.
If you’re wondering why I don’t say how this could have been done better is because I’ve a lot to write but I don’t have time right now.

#47

Practice at it and maybe you’ll get better.

You’re doing it wrong.

As if that’s not the point of Easy mode.

#48

Easy is hard enough for me. And I believe that at points, easy should be easier. (The helicopter should take less rockets, for one.)

#49

You look like someone who didn’t play Half-Life.
That game has just a better balance, in fact Valve was formed by very well-experienced developers at that time.

Edit: by the way you didn’t quote the part where I said “in some situations and yet a little bit hard in others”, I bet it was intentional.

#50

Yeah, many of them had even worked on an amazingly high total of 0 games! :hmph:

That’s not to say they weren’t experienced developers. In fact, the founders were very experienced. In operating systems.
Now, I realize that even then, Valve were hiring from the modding scene, but not all of their employees at the time had experience, and some of the BM team have been doing this from as far back as Half-Life. They’ve got more experience than Valve circa '97-'98.

#51

The guys who founded Valve were just finished working on Windows 98, it’s obvious when you look at the VGUI in GoldSrc and Source, feels like using Windows with a custom skin.

#52

I didn’t because it doesn’t make any sense in terms of a complaint. Every game has parts that are easier or harder than other parts. The original HL had difficulty shifts like that, too. I had more trouble with any fight in We’ve Got Hostiles and Surface Tension than damn near anything else in that game. It just depends on the specific person playing how they fare.

#53

I wasn’t complaining in fact.

@JeffMOD : You got me. :wink:

#54

This is as most as we got:

Subject: RE: Black Mesa: Source
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:47:49 -0800
From: ScottL@valvesoftware.com
To: orcone@hotmail.com

Hi James,

Gabe passed along your note.

Our preference is to see mod teams do original content.

Regards,

Scott

From: orcone [mailto:orcone@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:13 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Black Mesa: Source

Hi Gabe,
My name is orcone and I am working with the mod team creating Black Mesa: Source. I was just wondering if you had heard of us.
We are still sort of in a state of limbo, waiting if we can get the OK from Valve to keep making the mod.
It would be a great boost for the team if we could get word back from you about this issue, not to mention boost morale.
Our website is https://www.blackmesasource.com
Thanks for reading, hope to hear back from you!

Thank you.
-James

#55

Did you just call yourself a developer and proceed to call it ‘Black Mesa: Source’?

#56

Are you kidding?

They removed the “Source” part at Valve’s request early in development.

#57

Oh wait, didn’t notice the time stamp.

#58

I actually think it’s kinda funny that they indirectly said “We’d rather you not do that,” then the team continued on for about 7 more years.

#59

ok i sent this message to Marc Laidlaw a while ago and an there is an older one was about if he played Black Mesa. He responded both…

#60

Or rather, you think it’s worse than the original. All comes down to opinions.

It’s supposed to be cheesy on purpose. I’m not a fan of it either, but I don’t mind it that much.

Keeping in mind that Black Mesa is based off of Half-Life 2…

  • The crowbar is nowhere near useless
  • The pistol was only nerfed for two damage points
  • The MP5 was buffed except for the magazine size - it’s far more accurate, and has a higher fire-rate. The amount of damage is almost the same (it shares 6 damage per hit with the pistol, the HL1 SMG did 5 damage per hit)
  • While the Marine AI is ridiculously omniscient, the only enemy that was buffed a lot was the Houndeye, because Houndeyes in Half-Life 1 sucked.

Just about all the re-balancing goes a long way to make the game better. Half of the stuff you’ve said (both here and in your other thread) simply aren’t true - The crowbar isn’t useless at all, and your complaints stem from either you not knowing how to use it or from you not understanding how the game works.

Both in Half-Life and Black Mesa, you’re not supposed to be storming a group of enemies to fight them. It’s more pronounced in Black Mesa, but Half-Life shared that design as well. I recall you complaining about that in your other thread.

Overall? The game’s harder than Half-Life. The difference is, almost all of the difficulty in Black Mesa comes down to… Well, genuine difficulty. Half-Life was pretty good at this as well, but areas like Interloper were just unfair. The only unfair difficulty in BM comes from the soldier AI.

… Okay, you have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?

On A Rail was cut down because most players found it overly confusing and frustrating. Surface Tension was cut down because (if I recall correctly) the level designer who worked on it left the team, so what (s)he had finished had to be spliced to the start of Forget About Freeman (someone correct me on this if I’m wrong).

The added areas in Sector C or other chapters are to make the game make more sense. In Half-Life, you have an incredibly abrupt cut from the “lab” areas of Sector C to the drainage areas, and it’s jarringly noticeable. The bit with the elevator that the player enters, for instance, in Black Mesa, was added to make the transition make more sense.

Same with the labs that were added - In Half-Life, there were all of three side-rooms to Sector C’s upper area. It didn’t make any sense. In Black Mesa, there are at least three more that I can recall, making it seem more like a laboratory.

You need to learn what remake means.

If you hate Black Mesa so much, then go back to Half-Life. Or hell, Half-Life: Source, sounds like that’s what you’re looking for.

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.