Agree with JCDoe. Commercial developers are basically given ultimatums by publishers to be finished by xx date or whoops, there goes the money! Except when the developers and publishers are the same entity :he said while glaring accusingly at Valve:, then they basically get to do wtfever they want :he said while glaring accusingly at Valve:.
There will always be problems when a game/mod/whatever is released. That’s why god invented auto-installing patches.
Games are hard to make. The BM team is recreating a big commercial game for free in their spare time, using three or four times the amount of detail and technology that was used in the original game. It’s natural that a project like this, made by a number of people who do not work together, do not have the same type of resources as Valve does and have other things to do that are more important than BM, is going to take ages to be completed.
Be patient, have some common sense, do not obsess over something that is not owed to you and, most important of all, don’t be a jerk.
That is all.
The original half-life was made after 2 years if I remember correctly so either it is coming out this year or whe have another 2 years 
What? You don’t worship them?
The first build of HL was completely scrapped in 1997 and remade in less than a year and then launched in 1998.
tl;dr
When its done I suppose
"Games are hard to make. The BM team is recreating a big commercial game for free in their spare time, using three or four times the amount of detail and technology that was used in the original game. It’s natural that a project like this, made by a number of people who do not work together, do not have the same type of resources as Valve does and have other things to do that are more important than BM, is going to take ages to be completed.
Be patient, have some common sense, do not obsess over something that is not owed to you and, most important of all, don’t be a jerk.
That is all."
Its this sort of sycophantic mindset that leads to big, doomed-from-the-outset, mod projects.
When Reality Man was overhauling UltraHLE, know what happened when people said “hey, when is this gonna be done?” They got ripped into by project fanboys who said “HE DOESN’T OWE YOU ITS A BIG PROJECT JUST BE GRATEFUL NUB!!!” I know, I was one of said fanboys. And then guess what? He finally came out and said “geez, writing emulators is hard. I’ve decided to do something else with my time.” I spent over a year defending Reality Man, and felt like a tool.
So here I am now, a little wiser for the experience, and here’s how I feel. First, mods of projects like this do owe their fans something. I understand that this is a hobby project, but that doesn’t mean they work for free. They get paid with the accolades and adoration of their forum followers. You’ve given them your support and respect, and publically defended them time and again. That’s worth something.
Second, there is a difference between reasonable patience and super-human, Buddhist-zen patience. Normal patience is “oh, they said it’d be out in January. Its only March, so I can wait a bit longer.” Super human patience is “I will sit idly by like a love-sick puppy for months, even years, after the due date. Maybe the masters will deem to reach down and give me table scraps if I am loyal enough . . .”
I hate to be Mr. Negative, but again, I’ve been through this before.
I just got done reading the last 16 pages since I checked this thread and I noticed something disconcerting that I would like to address, the flame war between s1e9a8n5 and Ballspot over the lack of media releases and why. I realize that this is no longer temporally topical but please bare with me because this has been getting to me for a while now.
First off let me make one thing clear. I don’t care about either side of this argument and think that there are valid points that both can make.[/SIZE]
These are the basic lines of logic for both sides of the argument:
Having some, though basic, status updates would be nice, from an objective point of view. It would maintain interest in the mod and give the members of this board something to talk about.
The devs have emphatically stated that there will be none such updates and as such people should just stop asking for them.
The problem arises from a general lack of patience in both sides.
Side 1 analysis:[/SIZE]
The people who want some sort of update are impatient because they haven’t seen anything since the trailer last year. This can be witnessed by taking a look in the cafeteria board and noticing that the top 4 threads below the stickies are all one form or another of trying to get some sort of info, get some sympathy for it not being out, covertly whine, outright whine, what have you. People really want so get something so they can see that the mod really is “still alive and doing science” (my apologies for the bad joke but I feel that I’m being overly serious here.)
Side 1 Conclusion:[/SIZE]
This kind of pestering accomplishes nothing because of the the stance that the devs have already established. Any request for info will be ignored by the devs and that’s that.
If people would just let threads and posts like that die then everything would be fine. They are as my sig states, “the ignorant masses” and it is because of that that we get into the second tier of the issue.
Side 2 analysis:[/SIZE]
So many people get here and complain about the lack of such and such that the members of the board that have been here for a long time are just sick of seeing it all and take it out on the new folks. I’ve noticed this in my last 3.5 years of lurking on these forums. Flames sprout because seasoned veterans of the forums are sick of seeing it and the problem compounds and eventually becomes a giant flame war and the newbies don’t even necessarily realize that they’re wrong.
Side 2 conclusion:[/SIZE]
Well I’ve got news for you. There is an essentially limitless number of people out there who can and may join these forums looking for some sort of anything. If we constantly flame them then eventually that will be all that this forum is about. Flame wars starting is certainly the only thing I ever seem to notice on the speak up section of the main page. New people need to either have things calmly explained to them once and go on or just need to be ignored. Either method should have a positive impact on the problem.
General Conclusion:[/SIZE]
Everyone needs to just
Eventually the mod will be released, or it won’t, but this constant bickering is pointless either way you look at it.
Doubtlessly someone will have only read the first couple sentences of this post though, so let the flaming continue.
^ I agree, well worded. (And for the record I read the whole post)
I (humbly) think that a good idea would be for the devs to choose one or two senior members of this forum to be their official spokespersons. That way those trusted members have direct contact with the devs and can set the eager fans at ease with regular updates. I too understand that this is a side project for the dev team, but the lack if recent information is a little bit disconcerting. I for one would like to play Half Life again (after several years), but I’m trying to hold off in hopes that this mod will be released soon. If the mod is going to be a long time coming, then I’ll just play the original. I would just like to plan appropriately.
Very well said. I couldn’t agree more.
Why do we need that? We already have moderators and senior members that do that daily. One to two other people additionally doing it would make no difference what so ever.
Yes, but I’m talking about official updates, straight from the devs, specifically for this site (since this is where all Half Life 2 mod sites point to.)
EDIT: Sorry, but when I mentioned senior members, I guess I was referring to the site moderators.
This is basically how I see it, but i’ve never been too dedicated to waiting so i’m not as emotional about it.
One thing I will say to extend on the point that the developers do owe the community something is the fact that they had choices.
One choice was to keep it behind curtains, not have a forum or website (would certainly save time for them to develop) and simply use other communities, valve provided or whatnot, to release information on their mod if needed.
Another choice is to have a website, advertise, create hype and buzz over the mod and in essence this is where I find they owe the community. THe point to this path is to create hype, buzz, receive adoration, applause and generally positive vibe, which overall might increase their desire to finish the mod.
The excuse “the mod is a personal project we all do in our own spare time” “we don’t do this for money, we owe you nothing” starts to make less sense here. The developers use the commmunity to make themselves feel better, create hype and buzz over their project, promise deadline to further boost the initial hype/buzz and then not deliver.
I ‘DO’ understand that the developers are in no way obligated, morally or legally to come through on their project and give it to us. But in an ethical sense, they have used the community to their own end, whether it was with malicious intent or not (which I highly doubt), the fact still remains they do owe the community at least for that. This is why most of us cry for at least more media/development updates…
i would love to see BM completed it seems awsome in the screenshots and all
however me and my fredns we studie game design and as we developed our own games we think we know what gonig on here u keep addins news things and idea the mod get more awsom each day but then not close to developement
What?
I think your posting and what you’re talking about have something in common.
I re-e-e-eally doubt that any of the devs would be THAT desperate. Or any person on the earth for that matter…
You might want to rephrase that…
I’m sure the devs are laughing their asses off at the useless banter that goes on around the community.
I’ll leave it up to others to see through the awkward phrasing. But yes, I mean I highly doubt it was ever malicious.
And I don’t mean they do it in desperation. I say it’s more unwittingly using the community to this end in order to feel better, we all do it. For example we lean on friends for help, approval, input on our daily lives etc… And the general rule is you reply in kind.
And the reply in kind isn’t the mod in 5 years time, that doesn’t really cut it.
I’ll lend a friend money when i’ve known him for 5 years and he’ll loan me at a similar level of friendship.
If I were to make a direct comparison using this set of metaphors. The developers are treating the community as almost strangers while the community has been treating them developers as decent friends for quite awhile.
For the most part, the dev team does not come here for very specific reasons. Basically… cuz they are busy doing other things. You know… Like MAKING THE MOD.
They do not have the time to coddle, mentor or otherwise babysit the forums to ensure everyone loves them. Either the fans love them or hate them. They have dealt with both options and have realized that regardless of what they say, we will see both here.
So… they spend more of their time actually working on the mod.
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.