Social media campaign starts on Facebook

Ry_amp_955_n · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

You still looking for a video to show me? I’m still waiting, man. I’ll be patient tho. This forum is all about patience.

Tuskin38 · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

I don’t think anyone ever thought it was perfect. Nothing is truly perfect.

sersoft · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

I hope you don’t think I was serious, I did say that I haven’t played any games after Half-Life in the same sentence.

Bloodshot · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

I think he did…

Ry_amp_955_n · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

I took it as an exaggerated compliment for Half-Life but the actual speedrun part as a serious boast…

Artic_Xiongmao · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

Stormseeker, these elaborated comments on the development process are just great.

Short question: apart from architectural descriptions, gamplay and scripted setpieces and such, what is described in the design document for QE? Did you go as far as describing the wonderful whiteboard Xenobiology pictures you seem to have? Did you actually got to think about the purpose of every lab?

Because if this is the case, this and “Residue Processing” will probably have been the most difficult chapters to remagine, right? Making all of those meaningless machines realistic and giving them purpose? I imagine RP also has a pretty big design document, by whoever did the level. Did that translate to other, less complicated chapters? For example, do the offices in Office Complex have different sections? And have you made more sense of the too-lineal layout of AM?

Still, even in BM screenshots, it looks strange that in AM you have 3 security guards doing their job mere inches from each other: one opens your tram door, the other is in the security booth between the secure doors (in past BM screenshots, at least; it was not in HL), and the other at the desk. Over-employment. Haha. Unless the first two are the same guy, of course.

Another, more crazy question: do the connections across the chapters make sense? For example, if the reference to the tram in QE refers to a part of the tram we’ve seen in the beginning (in Inbound), are they linked across the game, if you were to connect the maps? As in, do they end up more or less in the same place? Probably not, I guess. It’d be a lot of pain and redesign of the whole game just to make such a meaningless detail feasible. But it’d still be pretty cool to have that kind of obsessive compulsive physical consistency. But hey, no one but the most crazy will notice eitherway.

Paddy · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

Sounds good, i’d love to give them a read.

ManlyStump · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

stormseeker:

Actually, there are references to the transit system elsewhere, you just don’t get to ride on it anywhere else, as that was never a part of the original game.
Technically the large semi circular track at the start of Blast Pit (one of my maps) is part of the old industrial tram system from the times when the base was military in nature, now abandoned. Instead of it ending at the broken pipe and radioactive lake, I extended the track into the distance, and made the bottom of the elevator a terminal and the break in the track explainable by a collapsed bridge caused by a roof fall, possibly related to the burst pipe that spewed all the radioactive liquid into that area.

I also added a reference to the main transit system in Questionable Ethics as you exit the chapter to Surface Tension, you pass a door leading to the platform of Sector E, which iirc was the green line. If you could go to the platform from Questionable Ethics, and the main reason why I placed the entrance to it by the exit area to Surface Tension, you would find that the red line is also accessible on that platform, which leads to the Hydro Electric facility (Sector G -which is in Surface Tension).
The green line also joins onto the secure yellow line that runs to the Lambda Complex, which was the primary method of transporting specimens from the teleporter to Xen to the Secure storage facility at the Biodome, which during the period of Half Life was still under construction. To allude to that, I placed a freight elevator at the rear of the facility near to the Autopsy Room, and a non traversable room labelled “Holding Pens” near another of the new labs. I’ve also added references to the biodome facility in the administration section of the QE Chapter.
Although the Biodome Complex isn’t the Advanced Biological Research Lab (which is roughly in the middle of Sector E and G), I made the decision to link it within the game, as it seemed to make sense that the ABR labs would be an earlier facility that was too small for the research intentions of Black Mesa, which is why the Biodome was under construction, hence why there are several linking references.

If you spend time looking around the level, i’m sure you’ll find all the links and references you want.

My design document for Questionable Ethics was 56 pages long (about 25000 words or so), but alot of that was expanded or cut from the final version. In contrast, my design document for bm_c1a4a, the rail section of Blast Pit was only 12 pages long, but then it was only 1 map.

It’s not black in game, I have a very bright monitor so my brightness settings in game are at the lowest setting. When I took the screenshot I forgot to raise them

The lab it replaces from the original is actually reproduced in an earlier part of of the chapter in BM, so there really isnt a reference location for it. I suppose you could place it in the sloping corridor between the twin cage room you find the crossbow in (which is now in the area preceeding the lobby) and the agrunt storage room (which is now the cryonics lab - i updated the wiki to show that ref). The layout is a bit different however it does follow the same main points of the original, and its still a double loop design.

This would be a great post to link trolls to when they say you guys don’t have to worry about level design, plot, etc. I’ve been around since 2007 and I still underestimate how much work you guys actually put into all this stuff!

Madox · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

Nice to see that Black Mesa is still alive and proving so whit some media updates. Thanx guys!!!

Bloodshot · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

Just figured I’d post this here, Mendasp posted this on another forum in response to someone mentioning him about the mod in a negative way:

I was reading the thread and I saw my name being mentioned… and I was going to say exactly this, the mod seemed like it had a management change for the better (not very long after I left IIRC, in fact things were improving by the time I left), but I never said it was a ######hole or anything like that. There was little direction or coordination when I was there, that’s true, everyone was pretty much doing its own thing. But that was back in like 2004-2005, the mod had barely started back then.

I didn’t even do that much for the mod, in fact what I did was pretty much crap that I’d rather get deleted forever because it was awful, I actually told them not to credit me because I didn’t deserve it for the work I had done. I don’t remember coming across that negative about them… I never rebuilt or scrapped an entire map as I wasn’t there very long, so I don’t think someone could have gotten that from me. I don’t hate the BMS dev team (current or previous) or anything, as I have no reason for it… so I’m kinda confused.

Hopefully that clears things up.

I’m still looking forward to it, btw (I guess this is obvious?).

ac3d · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

Strange how all the former members can still keep a tight lip on the mod, they chose them very well.

jone4s · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

stormseeker:

Actually, there are references to the transit system elsewhere, you just don’t get to ride on it anywhere else, as that was never a part of the original game.
Technically the large semi circular track at the start of Blast Pit (one of my maps) is part of the old industrial tram system from the times when the base was military in nature, now abandoned. Instead of it ending at the broken pipe and radioactive lake, I extended the track into the distance, and made the bottom of the elevator a terminal and the break in the track explainable by a collapsed bridge caused by a roof fall, possibly related to the burst pipe that spewed all the radioactive liquid into that area.

I also added a reference to the main transit system in Questionable Ethics as you exit the chapter to Surface Tension, you pass a door leading to the platform of Sector E, which iirc was the green line. If you could go to the platform from Questionable Ethics, and the main reason why I placed the entrance to it by the exit area to Surface Tension, you would find that the red line is also accessible on that platform, which leads to the Hydro Electric facility (Sector G -which is in Surface Tension).
The green line also joins onto the secure yellow line that runs to the Lambda Complex, which was the primary method of transporting specimens from the teleporter to Xen to the Secure storage facility at the Biodome, which during the period of Half Life was still under construction. To allude to that, I placed a freight elevator at the rear of the facility near to the Autopsy Room, and a non traversable room labelled “Holding Pens” near another of the new labs. I’ve also added references to the biodome facility in the administration section of the QE Chapter.
Although the Biodome Complex isn’t the Advanced Biological Research Lab (which is roughly in the middle of Sector E and G), I made the decision to link it within the game, as it seemed to make sense that the ABR labs would be an earlier facility that was too small for the research intentions of Black Mesa, which is why the Biodome was under construction, hence why there are several linking references.

If you spend time looking around the level, i’m sure you’ll find all the links and references you want.

Thats what i wanted to hear…!! great great! : )

That topic almost deserves its own thread… You guys are doing a magnificient job; black mesa comes really to life! It seems so much more detailed, believable and immersive now! i would love to actually see a part of the black mesa transit system in some later part of the game…

And you have to change the bullsquid. Then everything would be nice i think. And add the panthereye (really)…

thanks

Bloodshot · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

https://www.facebook.com/BlackMesaDevs/posts/446443948707753?comment_id=5380815&offset=0&total_comments=1

A surprisingly direct answer

Imonfire · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

I probably do not remember right, but isn’t CatzEye not on the team anymore anayways?

MysticJ · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

the same way a Janitor in Microsoft HQ should be quoted on saying when Windows 9 comes, using “But he works for Microsoft, no?” logic.

Victoria has no power what-so-ever to influence when the mod is released, so her voice is - no pun intended - irrelevant.

Bloodshot · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

lol you guys should see the rage the changes are causing on facepunch. People are literally complaining about the bullsquid saying how you guys are disregarding Valves intensions, and other people are complaining about the turrets, saying how could you ditch the cool HL1 base for the crappy combine-style base (and apparently they see it as a combine turret reskin because of that)

ac3d · November 25, 2018, 1:48am

link please I want to lol

_rot_fodder · November 25, 2018, 1:49am

I can’t wait till the mod gets released and your average retard realizes that Black Mesa isn’t an exact replica copy of Half Life.

The tears will cause flooding and property damage.

CygNuS · August 11, 2020, 8:54am

@ ac3d: https://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1152082&page=52

ac3d · November 25, 2018, 1:49am

Ram the bullsquid looks like shit can you start the mod over? thx.