Hello, I’m Demolitionist1. I know that you guys are probably as busy as ever with working on Black Mesa and getting patches and updates in to fix any bugs that may have been reported. Now, I’m not one to speculate, but I haven’t seen any new updates in a while and I am getting concerned on the matter. What I mean is that no one has updated us on how things are going since the game went into early access. The last post was in June and it’s August now. I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything but could I know what is happening with the game’s development so far? Are the Xen level’s in the works? Are there new multiplayer maps? Is there a problem with the game that needs attention? Again, I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything of the sort but I’m just saying, it’s been over a month and we haven’t seen any updates. Could we please get an update about the updates?
The last patch was on July 24th, as seen here.
Xen is being developed, there is no public release date. Multiplayer maps such as Snarkpit and Crossfire will be released in time. As the devs have stated before, these things take time.
Yeah, development takes time. A couple months is nothing for a dev team working in their spare time. They have to work, and test, revise, etc, repeat. before releasing patches and content updates. They’ve got a shortage of programmers, as well, so I’m sure that’s not helping on the code side of things, but they’re most certainly working on other stuff. I believe it was said the next content update will finish off the brand new weapon assets.
Our next focus for updates is Content Update 2, which will be even larger than the first major one, and we are aiming to deploy it within a couple of months. I can’t give an exact timeframe on it yet as it is dependent on how quickly some of the required work gets done and how smoothly the new hires turn out.
Though I can’t be too specific, our plans for future updates - not necessarily all in the next one though - (prior to Xen), include - more new weapon models, bug fixes (of course!), more balance changes, new MP maps (Crossfire I can confirm), new gamemodes for MP, many MP gameplay changes and refinements, new graphical features, updates to singleplayer (Surface Tension is planned but not completely certain yet), menu and UI overhaul, workshop updates, and that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head.
There may be a small patch or two in between now and then but I don’t believe we have one officially planned. Our development is very fluid and dynamic. Development is extremely time consuming, guys.
Unless I’m mistaken, some things got cut/postponed because of bugs. Something about the facial system and customization I think?
It all sounds good TextFAMGUY1…
Especially those new graphical features and updates to ST
Oh wow, that’s amazing.
So much new content. can’t wait to see it, it’s gonna be awesome, we all know it. Although a small question. What do you mean by ,New weapon models, ? You replied to me in one thread and told me that the crossbow has been completely redone, can you tell us more about another planned weapon you intend to update 
?
<3
Ooh, barrels of new content!
I hope a fix for the zombie guard models is in that list somewhere. The torso is a slightly-less-finished Sci zombie torso, and the holstered glock uses the zombie guard material rather than the glock one.
about models… i suggest to review the guard model’s ass. Because in multiplayer it looks like he doesn’t have one and his legs bones seem to reach into his stomach (mp5 3rd person animations)… Sorry for being funny and a nitpicker but yea… it looks really strange and I think the HL1 playeranimations (besides of normal jump maybe) were better for gameplay, because the stance was more upright (better aim for your enemies head) and the size (or better: mainly only the hight) for hitboxes was always the same (in BMDM it’s a clear difference if your 3rd person model holds a pistol/crowbar or a slot-3 weapon…) also the tau-cannon should not be hold like an RPG. You should add a stock and make players shoot it from the hip.
New MP modes sounds exciting! I’d love to see some objective-oriented stuff!
I still think it’s a bad decision to not test Xen with Early Access audience. The Earthly portion of the game benefited greatly from player feedback; without it, it would be mediocre. And if you don’t test Xen with us, then there’s a great risk it will be mediocre as well. 
I disagree, I don’t think the key to a good game is public testing of everything, abd I would argue that the game turned out far above mediocre even before EA.
^ This.
After all, they’re experienced devs. and they know what they should and shouldn’t do, so they don’t need to ask for feedback for absolutely everything. I believe they can handle the stuff.
One of the future updates will come with a complete 3rd person animation overhaul for MP. We currently use hacked/rerigged HL2 animations from Valve which have a lot of problems. Our animators have been working on creating an entirely custom movement/weapon set of animations, I believe they are quite far along. I think there are some cool features planned like proper jump animations (with a looping mid air animation like TF2), long jump animation, swim animations, etc.
I don’t think many would argue the earthbound portion of the game turned out mediocre in the 2012 mod release, which hadn’t been publicly tested. Xen will not be mediocre. We know what we’re doing. We also have a pretty large internal testing team, anyway. It’s precisely because we know what we’re doing that it’s taking so long, because these things take a lot of time to get right.
I believe the 3 weapons we have currently slated for CU2 are Crossbow, Gluon, and Shotgun, which rounds off the final planned weapon changes for the entire game. Do not take this as confirmation as I’m pretty sure we’re not 100% on these yet. The Crossbow and the Gluon are mostly finished, I think, and the new Shotgun’s model has only been hi-poly’d, and isn’t in game yet. But - the new Shotgun looks freaking sweet. It knocked my socks off when I first saw it. I think most people would agree the Shotgun didn’t really “need” it, but I was surprised at the huge difference the new, more HL1’y model made. It looks awesome and I hope we are able to pull together and get it in.
Disclaimer: I’m telling you guys these things in good faith. They do not constitute a promise. Our development is extremely fluid and complex and things can (and do) change constantly. What I communicate here are our plans, but they very often change or turn out differently. Bear that in mind.
You devs are the best! Great plans! Edit: With new jump animations… Are you going to adjust jump hight for crouch-jumps, longjumps and normal jumps? Atm you have this auto-crouchjump. I think for now it’s ok, but I’d like it to get removed in future.
Amazing, that patch is gonna be huge and full of goodies.
Speaking about the Shotgun, well it could use some improvements in fact. I always got a strange feeling when I used it. The animations somehow made it feel very, very light, but not in a good sense. Unless I fired it, I felt like I was holding a sort of toy gun. So yeah, it somehow needed improvements, but not major.
Also I think I’ve noticed something strange. Is it only me or the current MP5 arm doesn’t match the model used on the other guns?
Man, I leave for ONE day and I miss all the good stuff lol! I must thank you all for the responses with my concerns for the updates and I cannot wait to see them. Also, FAMGUY, could we see just like a prototype screenshot on the Xen when it’s coming close to being ready?
YES Crossfire! Easily my favorite deathmatch map 
I am really happy to see that FamGuy took interest to let me know on how the updates are going and I can’t wait to see it up and running in the future.