I honestly can’t remember.
I either came across it while looking for HD Model Packs for Half Life Source, or found it while looking for good models for the HECU (which is also how I found the Obsidian Conflict mod). I knew about it’s existence before this, but never really looked into it.
Followed it for a few months, joined the forums around 2008, eventually left in early 2009 do to forums inactivity, rejoined again later, left again for awhile, and now here I am.
I dreamed of it late one night, then woke up in a cold sweat. Then I forgot.
Later while browsing youtube, I found an early trailer of it and thought “Wow, that looks awesome”
I have been a long time regular lurker of these forums, and In a way I feel that I survived the forum db crash of 09.
I found BM mod going on a guess 4 years ago. I was at the time heavy into texture art, and found that the source engine to be very eazy to work with. I had quite a portfolio at ***Bananana.com. Somehow surfing the web I found a help wanted ad for a texture artist/modeler for this mod and requested an application.
This was in line with my skills/desires, as back in Y2k (Before the end of the world) I bought a computer with the only reason being Half-life. I loved half life. I hated counter strike.
So to me, a chance to apply my skills toward something other than Counter Strike Source AND a game idea I liked would have been stellar.
I will never forget the day I opened the mail from Black Mesa team, and it had what I figured to be a tool box model that needed a skin made. I closed up the mail, and in a series of events that transpired over the following 15 minutes resulted in my buddy ESD’in (Static shock) my terrible motherboard. It was under warranty, but the application had a one week return time on it. A month and a half later, and 2 motherboards returned I learned a few things. Never EVER EVER let anyone touch your PC even if they are just moving the plug (Which was what happened), AND never ever ever take an ABIT motherboard. Never even pay for one. I don’t care if its free and comes with the best ham and cheese sandwich ever. Abit = bad.
So from there I chose to take a lurker/watcher point of view. I can say that I am thrilled with the progress being made. I can understand how long this takes as the team doing this project are real people. They are not compensated. They have jobs and lives outside of the project.
I am looking forward to this project being completed withing the year, as I would love to relive the olden days, just with shiny HDR, and well polished bumpmaps. Phong shading would be nice, but Im almost certain that it wont be standard and would require some vmt fixes.
I shall wait and see.
Now, I shall go back to lurking.
-Whippy-
Well done for the first interesting post to this thread in several pages. Oh for what might have been, eh? Welcome out of lurkdom, btw. 
Haha, In a retrospective way I think that the death of the Abit nf-95 was some sort of miracle or the hand of god working with me. Im a perfectionist when I get to using photoshop. Most of my ***Banana.com skins I removed due to minor imperfections. The only one on there at the moment I remotely like I spent close to 2 years on as it evolved from one form to another. I used to use that site to “lock-in” my final versions, but as I got better with photoshop, I see flaws that no one else sees. You guys would not have gotten more than a few skins out of me up till this point in time I don’t think, only because Im aware of my own “failure” of artistic perfection. Its an odd paradox. I like art, but I must do it perfect, but its impossible for art to be “perfect”.
I’m a long time lurker as well. Heard about the mod while working on a content replacement mod (HL: S :HD) on the “Half-Life Improvement Team” (HIT) forums. Been following it since the early days. I don’t post much, but that’s only because if I hang around too much I get impatiently excited. 
Meh… my webhost discontinued their services and I was given the option to renew with a different firm, but I never did. So I ‘lost’ my webspace. But I don’t have to pay for it anymore either. Did not do much with it anyway, so…
End of 2009, we gonn’ get HIIIIIIGH!
Roughly around 2005 after my father came home with Half-Life 2, I began playing it and found it really interesting.
I decided to search the internet for the game and stumbled across the wonderful world of mods.
Then I came across a mod website, which had listed Black Mesa, being a fan of Half-Life 1 this interested me and here I am today, a Black Mesa junkie. :retard:
Hello all =)
Im new here and first want to say hello. If my english is too bad then im sorry^^
My first shooter ever was Half-Life. For me, its the best game i ever played. I remember evenings, when i played HL and my brother sit at my side and yelled “WHOOOHO! You killed Nihilanth!” …that was so freakin awesome.
Well, we are such great fans and hoped there will ever be HL2. Then it got announced and we heard that Half-Life1 will be sold in the special Silver edition known as “HL: Source” … We saw great trailers of HL2 and thought “When HL2 looks so amazing, what will HL: S Look like. Xen? Blast Pit? The giant Cliff? The Resonance Cascarde?”
But then after playing HL2 through we played HL: S … …
We got sooo Dissapointed. 
Even after EP1 and EP2 we thought on the great HL, and the times we played it with an 56k Modem on internet (Yeah although we had fun xD).
And then my girlfriend forget her USB stick full of gametrailer, which was plugged into my PC. There I found a data Called “Blackmesasource.avi”
I viewed this trailer … I nearly died 
SO i found this site and i hope … please take you’re time to finish this mod. Its a 12 hour Game and i hope so much that it’s such good as the HL i know! Do you’re best. I know so many mods and Games which has been ‘completed’ under the pressure of time. That should never happen to a recreation of such a monumental and fantastic game!
Hope, greetings from Germany,
a big fan =D
I personally found Black Mesa BEFORE finding Half Life. I was searching for good shooter mods, and Google kept popping up MINVERVA and Black Mesa. Checked out MINERVA. It was a mod for a game called “Half Life 2”. Okay, moving on. Then I checked out BM, which was a remake of the original “Half Life”. I decided I’d buy both games and see if they were worth it. THEY WERE WORTH EVERY CENT. After playing both games and the Gearbox Expansions (I can’t afford Eps. 1 or 2), I decided to revisit Black Mesa. So… Here I am!
That’s kind of cool, actually.
I kind of want to buy Episode 1 and 2 for you…:retard:
This. I was so excited and (I’d bet like most people here) I was hoping for a yesterday release date. Of course, that was 4 years’ worth of yesterdays but the excitement has only continued to grow. Kind of like waiting for Diablo 3. Or Duke Forever.
…scratches head…
I just realized that games out “today” are just filler until the “When it’s done!” games are released. Unless of course, the “today” games happen to be BM-S or D3.
Nah, I’m pretty excited to see MW2, and that has a release date.
I was browsing the net for HL screenshot, and when I saw one from BM, I was like OMG
I found it by finding it!
in all seriousness I found half-life thanks to a friend:he invited me blah blah blah nostalgic story then I had a project about videogames in my class and I did it about half-life and I searched pics of it via google and then came across the dam. THE DAM! and that hooked me up forever to Black Mesa
hellboi, Mr.Shadow, that must have been an awesome experience.
I can’t remember how I found black mesa ._.
I’m happy that I got to play HL1 before HL2.
It was in 2002/2003.
Bought it in a pack primarily for Counter-Strike though. But the I managed to play to finish in HL1 so I looked forward to playing HL2 as soon as I heard about it.
Bought it on release in a brick and mortar store. Have not bought any games that way ever since.
A vague mention in a thread on GTAForums, around a year ago.
Googled… and minutes later, was in a much better mood.
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.