Black Mesa Mod Goes Retail For Steam

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Black Mesa Mod Goes Retail For Steam

Black Mesa, the Source-powered overhaul of the classic shooter Half-Life, is getting a full retail release on Steam.

Most Half-Life fans will recognize Black Mesa as a fan-made effort to bring the great Valve shooter into the modern-ish era by way of the Source engine. It's not quite finished but it's really good, and it's also completely free. But today the team announced that the version of the game planned for release on Steam will cost money - but not very much.

"We never developed Black Mesa with money in mind. Our team is made up of average, hardworking people, and no one joined the team to make money. For us, Black Mesa is purely a labor of love. We believe this philosophy has significantly contributed to the overall quality and feel of the game," the project leader wrote on the Black Mesa forums. "Our decision to sell Black Mesa rests on two key points. One is we believe we can make the game even better by having full access to the Source engine. This lets us tackle and fix limitations instead of working around them. The second is because frankly, our team could really use the financial help."

The free edition of Black Mesa will remain available, and a brand new version of the freebie is actually slated to come out shortly after the paid release hits Steam. "Purchasing the Steam version of Black Mesa is more about supporting the team and our efforts than anything else," the project leader wrote. "However, the Steam version will include features that the free version simply cannot have. We will be paying careful attention to feedback, and you'll have a very real say in how the final game turns out."

The bad news is Xen, the final segment of Half-Life that's absent from Black Mesa, won't be added anytime soon. The team has spent the past year porting the game to a new engine in anticipation of the Steam release, forcing Xen to the back burner.

Source: Black Mesa [http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=17088]


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Bindal

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May 14, 2012
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I stick to the original Half-Life. Might not look as shiny, but at least it has good gameplay and is complete. Something I can't say about Black Mesa.
 

Blarg Blargson

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Bindal said:
I stick to the original Half-Life. Might not look as shiny, but at least it has good gameplay and is complete. Something I can't say about Black Mesa.
What's wrong with BM's gameplay? It's functionally identical to Half-Life, as far as I could tell after playing both.

I'll concede that it's not finished. I wonder if the Xen mod will be released as a seperate package or if it will eventually be integrated into the original mod?
 

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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I would have MUCH rather they finished Xen than ported the game to a new engine. I may have shelled out a couple of bucks to finish the game, but not to simply play it again in a shinier engine.
 

Infernal Lawyer

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I wouldn't mind figuring out what these exclusive features are. I wasn't aware that there was a premium version of the Source engine.

Also, most importantly... will the original versions (i.e. Vanilla and Source engine) of Half Life still cost money after the Xen area is finally added in?
 

Bindal

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Blarg Blargson said:
Bindal said:
I stick to the original Half-Life. Might not look as shiny, but at least it has good gameplay and is complete. Something I can't say about Black Mesa.
What's wrong with BM's gameplay? It's functionally identical to Half-Life, as far as I could tell after playing both.
If you played both for longer than the intro, you would notice that there are difference in movement, weapon-handling, AI-behaviour, puzzles, and pretty much everything.
For example, you basically can't jump in Black Mesa. What they call "jump", I call "standing on your toes". In Half-Life, I can jump over a handrail no problem and on some crates. Black Mesa? I can't do anything involving jumping unless I constantly crouch-jump. Which makes crouch-jumps as seperate feature complete pointless when it's THE ONLY THING I am allowed to use.

Other example would be the MP5 (or M4 in Half-Life with HD pack).
HL - 50 rounds, 250 spare, full-auto with semi-auto on tapping, good on mid-range and okay on long range.
BMS - 30 rounds, 120 spare, full-auto with BURST-FIRE on tapping, short range only.
Shotgun - a secret one in "Office complex" early, with two near the end in HL, somewhere in the middle of "We've Got Hostile" in BMS.
Crowbar - HL gives you pretty much right away, you only need to deal with one headcrab. BMS? Well, have fun dodging like 50 zombies for half an hour because your only way of defense is a guard unable to shoot. And once you got the crowbar, the first thing you're supposed to smash most likely KILLS YOU ON THE SPOT DUE A EXPLOSIVE CRATE AMONG THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO BREAK TO CONTINUE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Yeah, the two games are like night and day when it comes to gameplay. With Black Mesa doing everything wrong I can think of.
 

dmonkoff

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It's kinda unusual that valve doesn't make a copyright claim on that.
It's one thing when the game is free and it's completely different when they try to make money out of it.
On the other hand, it will be distributed on steam, so valve will get it's share.
I guess I just got used to publishers being dicks about things like that, so it's really nice to see something opposite.
 

Trivun

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Dec 13, 2008
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Have to say, kudos to Valve on this. First of all, they haven't shut the project down at any point, whereas someone like EA or Square Enix or Nintendo would do (and have done in the past). Second, they're allowing the team to make money from it, even if money wasn't the main intent behind the project in the first place. And third, they're allowing the game to be sold on their own platform (okay, I know that Valve will take a small percentage of every sale through Steam, but that's standard and goes without saying). On the whole, Valve have been great about the whole thing and I say fair play to them, and good luck to the BM team whatever they do :)
 

Adamantium93

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dmonkoff said:
It's kinda unusual that valve doesn't make a copyright claim on that.
It's one thing when the game is free and it's completely different when they try to make money out of it.
On the other hand, it will be distributed on steam, so valve will get it's share.
I guess I just got used to publishers being dicks about things like that, so it's really nice to see something opposite.
Think about it this way:

Possibility 1: Valve sues them and the project is scrapped. No money made by either side.

Possibility 2: Valve endorses the project by listing it on Steam (gaining a little good PR) and then makes a cut off of every sale. Both sides make money.

Valve likely realizes that its smarter for them to operate this way.
 

Blarg Blargson

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Bindal said:
....Yeah, the two games are like night and day when it comes to gameplay. With Black Mesa doing everything wrong I can think of.
I don't know what to say. From your description, it sounds like we didn't play the same game.
 

Bindal

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May 14, 2012
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Blarg Blargson said:
Bindal said:
....Yeah, the two games are like night and day when it comes to gameplay. With Black Mesa doing everything wrong I can think of.
I don't know what to say. From your description, it sounds like we didn't play the same game.
Obviously. Otherwise, you would have noticed everything I listed because these flaws ARE in Black Mesa.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Now if only they hadn't changed the music. I quite like the Black Mesa mod, except for its soundtrack. There is just something about Valve's Half Life music that absolutely sells the desolate and yet exciting setting. It feels alien, while retaining familiar elements. It uses synthesizers a lot, yet still uses electric guitar. It just sounds unique.

The Black Mesa mod throws all that out in favor of generic "drama" music with violins and sweeping orchestra pieces. It's like the change from Jack Wall and Sam Hulick for the first two Mass Effect games to the pretentious Requiem for a Dream guy in the third game. It just doesn't sound like Mass Effect, much like Black Mesa doesn't sound like Half Life.
 

NLS

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Jan 7, 2010
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Steven Bogos said:
I may have shelled out a couple of bucks to finish the game, but not to simply play it again in a shinier engine.
Infernal Lawyer said:
I wouldn't mind figuring out what these exclusive features are. I wasn't aware that there was a premium version of the Source engine.
It's not a new premium shiny engine, but rather the source code to the Source engine. This will in theory allow them to break free from any constraints of simply having a stand-alone mod. This is the same thing that happened to Garry's mod a few years ago, when Garry was given unlimited access to change the source code of the engine itself, and not just the game or mod code. Mods don't have this access, whereas commercially licensed games are given full freedom to alter any part of the engine.

OT: As long as they fix the jumping, I'm okay with this. The team has been working like gods for years, yet not seen a penny for it. I'd gladly shell out 20$ for it.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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dmonkoff said:
It's kinda unusual that valve doesn't make a copyright claim on that.
If it's getting a Steam release, the copyright issue has likely been sorted out behind closed doors before hand, given the quality of Black Mesa as it is now (buggy, but brilliant) I expect Valve will have been happy to work out a deal for a retail release.

I'll be buying this when it comes out, the unholy amount of effort they put in deserves some return, Black Mesa was better than most of the FPS's of the last two years, bugs and all.
 

Battenberg

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Aug 16, 2012
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dmonkoff said:
It's kinda unusual that valve doesn't make a copyright claim on that.
It's one thing when the game is free and it's completely different when they try to make money out of it.
On the other hand, it will be distributed on steam, so valve will get it's share.
I guess I just got used to publishers being dicks about things like that, so it's really nice to see something opposite.
I originally thought maybe Valve were letting it slide because it would rekindle people's interest in Half Life, effectively providing free advertising for a new installment. Of course that was a couple of years ago and we're no closer to finding out if there will even be HL3 now than we were back then.

OT: After all the work they put into this (for free) I'm glad to see they're going to get some return on it at last. Sadly my laptop can't run this mod for some reason (the reason probably being that my laptop is extremely crappy and slow) but when I inevitably get a decent gaming rig this will be on the top of my list of new purchases.
 

Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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From the original thread:
One is we believe we can make the game even better by having full access to the Source engine
Over the past year, we have spent a HUGE amount of time porting the game to a new engine and fixing hundreds of bugs.
When we got on greenlight, we were forced to move to another engine. Right now, we can't tell you what that engine is due to our licensing agreement.
I also want the paid version to be open source (only client and server, nothing else) but we need to talk to VALVe about that.
So, uh... is this gonna be the first game on Source 2? Kinda seems that way.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. 1000 posts! Maybe now the forum will believe I'm not a spambot :p
 

Andy of Comix Inc

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Apr 2, 2010
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Bindal said:
Blarg Blargson said:
Bindal said:
I stick to the original Half-Life. Might not look as shiny, but at least it has good gameplay and is complete. Something I can't say about Black Mesa.
What's wrong with BM's gameplay? It's functionally identical to Half-Life, as far as I could tell after playing both.
If you played both for longer than the intro, you would notice that there are difference in movement, weapon-handling, AI-behaviour, puzzles, and pretty much everything.
For example, you basically can't jump in Black Mesa. What they call "jump", I call "standing on your toes". In Half-Life, I can jump over a handrail no problem and on some crates. Black Mesa? I can't do anything involving jumping unless I constantly crouch-jump. Which makes crouch-jumps as seperate feature complete pointless when it's THE ONLY THING I am allowed to use.

Other example would be the MP5 (or M4 in Half-Life with HD pack).
HL - 50 rounds, 250 spare, full-auto with semi-auto on tapping, good on mid-range and okay on long range.
BMS - 30 rounds, 120 spare, full-auto with BURST-FIRE on tapping, short range only.
Shotgun - a secret one in "Office complex" early, with two near the end in HL, somewhere in the middle of "We've Got Hostile" in BMS.
Crowbar - HL gives you pretty much right away, you only need to deal with one headcrab. BMS? Well, have fun dodging like 50 zombies for half an hour because your only way of defense is a guard unable to shoot. And once you got the crowbar, the first thing you're supposed to smash most likely KILLS YOU ON THE SPOT DUE A EXPLOSIVE CRATE AMONG THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO BREAK TO CONTINUE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Yeah, the two games are like night and day when it comes to gameplay. With Black Mesa doing everything wrong I can think of.
Except for the whole "being free" thing, you mean.

And the whole "fan-made labour of love" thing.

And the whole still being in development thing.

I understand nitpicking, I do it all the time! But nitpicking a free, fan-made mod? Ostensibly created just to be a shiny remake of Half-Life? Do you think anyone on the team is making this game to divert your attention away from the original? (Besides, let's not pretend the platforming in Half-Life is worth hanging onto - it's severely dated; not to mention grating, annoying, archaic, and a bunch of other nasty words. 's shite, sir.)

Do you remember Half-Life: Source? Basically a direct port to Source, with everything intact except for buyer dignity. Well here's an actual Half-Life made in Source. And yes, it filled with minor gripes. This is what happens when an unprofessional, unpaid, international mod team starts making something. But to ask this one to be outright compared to the original? ...it's absurd. It's like saying the fan-made Indiana Jones Youtube videos aren't as original as Raiders. OH. OH ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE. MY MIND HAS BEEN BLOWN WIDE OPEN.

Reserve your judgement until the mod is finished. Or if it sells for more than Half-Life. These are situations in which it is okay to complain. Wait, how are ammo and gun differences night and day again? Semi-auto compared to burst? This isn't Counter-Strike balancing we're critiquing here, right? It's a... it's Half-Life. Is there something inherently wrong with a... with a burst fire on the MP5...?
 

thisbymaster

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Sep 10, 2008
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But a new engine? Source3? Half-life 3? Nope, I promised myself that I wouldn't get caught up in the hype train again.........................I FAILED ALL HAIL THE HEAD CRABS>&*(^*&^)*(&#)(*)$#
 

InvaderTim

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Dec 9, 2012
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This is a little optimistic, but if it is being ported to a version of source we haven't seen before (source 2 for example) maybe it will be packaged with a valve title also using the new engine, source 2 for example. like we saw with the orange box.

Well maybe not