You’re absolutely right OP. Good thread.
Thought I’d add my two cents in here.
I went to college for game design at the International Academy of Design and Technology. Admittedly I was not capable of completing it due to monetary reasons, however during my time there I learned something of interest.
This is in regards to the term “man-hours”
Like anything else, it takes time to make a game. The overall time required to finish a project from start to finish is measured in man-hours. Which is to say the amount of hours that every person worked. To give an example, say 3 people worked 5 hours. that would be 15 man-hours.
Now, the typical game takes anywhere from 100,000 to 120,000 man-hours to complete. The bigger the game, the more time it takes to complete.
Now to generalize a bit. Most game developers have a team of at least 30 people. That means at 100,000 man-hours with 30 people, that’s about 3333 hours per person. Now assuming they work for 7.5 hours a day, we get 444 days. that’s allready over a year. But this is assuming they work 7.5 hours a day every day, including holidays and weekends. That’s abit unrealistic, so let’s for the sake of being fair, add in those weekends and a rather general rate of 3 sets of saturdays and sundays per month, we now get 516 days from start to finish. this is nearly 2 years. I’m not going to bother going into the math of the holidays, I think my point is rather clear.
Now… those numbers would be for a standard size game made by a small company with a small staff. Now, as great as Half Life was, and as great as Black Mesa is going to be, it is still a standard sized game, to be completely honest about it. And it certainly does not have a team of 30 people working on it. The fact that it has taken as long as it has, and the fact that it will probably take more time is not a surprise.
It’s all about the man-hours.
^^^
On top of that, there is such thing as a workflow and development pipeline. You can’t have everything done in parallel -even when assuming that ideally you may occasionally re-assign stuff to people so that they won’t remain idle waiting for others to finish their part.
However, a mod does have some things going for it that the original HL did not. It can use the original game’s story, locations, events, weapons, characters, dialogues and has a game engine ready to work on (and extend) and SDK tools.
That said, I would justify just about any amount of time a mod takes to complete. (I am even ok (albeit sad), when a mod never makes it to final release or releases unfinished content and then gets cancalled )
And BM is way way more than your average mod.
Small thought:
- Twitter update day of release, stating mod is dead
- Rage all over twitter
- Devs laugh
If nothing else, those people “too lazy to check the website” will come here seeing the mod is done.
Or not.
I think people complain because of the lack of updates and information about the progress of the mod… not because it’s taking that long
Why not just have the twitter update say, " don’t get too excited there is still a bit of work to be done, so don’t hold your breath. " ?
I don’t really care, I am just adding a possible solution.
But in all, I think it’s funny that we treat people outside this forum as sub-human primates. I mean, it’s not like we have a bad reputation or anything, heh… heh. Jk
I totally understand how people react to stuff like that, but I think it will always be a double edged sword, so making excuses to benefit morons is unfair to everyone else. Again, I don’t really care, I’m just saying.
Good Thread OP, you’re good with words and are really handy to link morons to.
I must say, people don’t complain on Portal 2 for not seeing new updates, although it was planned to be released months ago.
People didn’t complain when HL was released a year after it was planned.
Why people complain when a small group of people makes a non-profit game that is delayed in the same time length as a major game-corporation?
It’ll be just better when it comes out - that’s all.
Why’re y’all so concerned about the jerks not taking their time to explore the abundance of information generated in the forums? Their loss, not yours. Just continue flaming them if they show up.
Their complaining to the things they said they would have in the game like coop and other stuff but then they were canceled, that and that it is taking a long time.
Unfortunatly you can’t stop people from complaining about something. No matter what you do. I believe the Devs are handling what they are doing very well to be quite honest. Dragon Age 2 came out this last thursday and despite all the hype, people have found things to complain about. They were even complaining about prerelease DLC. Nothing will be perfect. Nothing can ever BE perfect. Someone will complain about something. even after the release of the Mod, someone will complain “Oh why doesn’t gordon talk.” “Why can’t I hold more than 17 shots in my pistol?” same old stuff people have complained about every game.
That being said though, It doesn’t make them right or wrong. They just want to hear themselves be heard and be the center of attention. It’s like a bully. They believe they deserve more so they want to see you squirm. But if you ignore them long enough, they’ll eventually go away.
So don’t let them bother you. Thats my solution. And from the looks of it, it’s the Dev’s solution as well.
blah, blah, blah. Mod ready yet?
LOL I think you might of missed the point of this thread…
He just skip the first post and start posting like an idiot.
Joel Nielsen stated this:
i think the main reason for the complants is the lack of updating us anymore it went from at one point us being told latter that year to now over a year after the set date they have not even posted any twitter updates for 400 days no youtube updates…no nothing
it dose not make i group look good when they suddenly change like that it makes it look like you gave up or do not care anymore.
even with valve who started that way its starting to make them look bad
im fine with waiting and i will not complain about it but i do understand where these pepole are coming from
for me it looks like none of the games im looking forwared to will ever be made
KH3, HL2:ep3, byond good and evil 2, and many many more so the idea of a fan made re-done game i want geting delayed or even never made dose not bother me
The devs didn’t “suddenly stop” to give updates. It was people that started wild speculations and demanded more information or the release which ended in the teams decision not to give any official updates prior to release, because there’s always somebody who will know it better or wants MORE.
There is an abundance of information on the forums, it’s just not spoonfed to everybody. So stop complaining about an information blackout.
Beat me to it. Most people should know that the best place for updates is no longer the twitter feed and youtube channel but here:
https://www.wiki.blackmesasource.com/Special:RecentChanges
Those who desperately want more info should quit moaning, check out the wiki and be patient.
There is some great stuff in that wiki link too. Not sure why folks dont refer to it more often.