Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

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Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Isgrimnur »

Half-life 3 confirmed? :wink:
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

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Probably not but I love a good countdown.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by tru1cy »

Portal Pinball Machine?
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

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Annnnndddd the website goes offline at the end of the count down. Ugh.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Scoop20906 »

Was this intended or are too many people hitting the connection. Either way, bummer. It got to 00:00:01 and just went offline. :doh:
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Isgrimnur »

Does no one anticipate DDOSing their own site? Can they not buy a day's worth of CDN time to mitigate this?
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Are we sure it's Valve?

Registrant Name: Josh Hubi
Registrant Organization: Crowbar Collective
Registrant Address1: 3890 Sedgwick Avenue
Registrant Address2: 3A
Registrant City: Bronx
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Registrant Postal Code: 10463
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Registrant Nexus Category: C21
Administrative Contact ID: A42D0BFE13409069
Administrative Contact Name: Josh Hubi
Administrative Contact Organization: Crowbar Collective
Administrative Contact Address1: 3890 Sedgwick Avenue
Administrative Contact City: Riverdale
Administrative Contact State/Province: NY
Administrative Contact Postal Code: 10463
Administrative Contact Country: United States
Administrative Contact Country Code: US
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Billing Contact ID: A42D0BFE13409069
Billing Contact Name: Josh Hubi
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Billing Contact Address1: 3890 Sedgwick Avenue
Billing Contact City: Riverdale
Billing Contact State/Province: NY
Billing Contact Postal Code: 10463
Billing Contact Country: United States
Billing Contact Country Code: US
Billing Contact Phone Number: +1.3472759326
Billing Contact Email:
Technical Contact ID: A42D0BFE13409069
Doesn't look like Valve.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Isgrimnur »

We're sure it's not. Black Mesa has always been a third-party project.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Scoop20906 »

Ah, its working now. Pretty much just a trailer.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by PLW »

Maybe, this is what you want to see?
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Scoop20906 »

However, it looks like Black Mesa is available for Early Access at $19.99. I wonder if he holds up.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Isgrimnur wrote:We're sure it's not. Black Mesa has always been a third-party project.
Oh, so the Portal and HL3 posts were jokes. I'm so out of the loop on games now days. Ugh.

:oops:
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Isgrimnur »

No worries. It's certainly understandable in this case.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Blackhawk »

I'm not too sure about this. I played it when it was a mod, and it was top notch, no question. There doesn't seem to be much here that wasn't in the free release, though. They still only have a portion of the game (it stops before Xen, which they've been promising as on the way for years.) It is still basically Half-Life 1 with a few variations in the levels. Again, they're great variations and the gameplay is still fun. I just can't see myself dropping $20 to play it again after having already played it for free (and having played Half-Life 1 so many times that I could probably run them from memory.)
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by TiLT »

My greatest problem with Black Mesa right now is that the free version was archaic in its design, and the developers and community were outright hostile towards feedback that pointed this out. Enemies that were unaware of you (standing with their back to you, for example) and a hundred meters away would turn, aim and fire with pixel-perfect precision in a mere fraction of a second. Getting through a fight without taking damage was almost impossible. Winning turned into a game of quicksaving and retrying each encounter until it didn't leave you so stripped of resources as to be useless for the next encounter. I may just be getting old in my 35th year on this planet, but I never felt as if skill mattered much. It was more about quicksaving, dying or getting mortally wounded to some encounter that always has the drop on you no matter what, and then aiming your crosshair at the point where your opposition will be before you even walk around the corner to meet them after loading.

The developers and community called this "challenging". I call it "stupid," and I stand by that.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by NickAragua »

Although, to be fair, that was the way things worked in the original Half-Life. So, they're really sticking to their source material here.

Anyway, I'm not buying this. I uh, played the free version already.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Turtle »

I understand the argument from nostalgia, but I think some people and developers get too intense into rationalizing what are truthfully archaic design choices made in a time when little else could be done.

But since this is a remake, it's fine to choose to go that route, especially since the levels and gameplay features are all based on that original design.

On the other hand, hostile devs that justify that hostility because of nostalgia is stupid. It's one thing to stand by your own work and design decisions, but the truth of the matter is they are literally copying a game that's 15 years old now. They're not making many decisions of their own, even if it took a lot of time and effort to recreate the game, they don't have a leg to stand on in regards to design decisions, and should just shut their mouths if they can't keep it positive.

I had similar problems with the Xenonauts dev. They lampooned ideas on the forums for being too different from the X-COM design, then went and added questionable new stuff anyway.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by NickAragua »

Turtle wrote:I understand the argument from nostalgia, but I think some people and developers get too intense into rationalizing what are truthfully archaic design choices made in a time when little else could be done.

But since this is a remake, it's fine to choose to go that route, especially since the levels and gameplay features are all based on that original design.

On the other hand, hostile devs that justify that hostility because of nostalgia is stupid. It's one thing to stand by your own work and design decisions, but the truth of the matter is they are literally copying a game that's 15 years old now. They're not making many decisions of their own, even if it took a lot of time and effort to recreate the game, they don't have a leg to stand on in regards to design decisions, and should just shut their mouths if they can't keep it positive.

I had similar problems with the Xenonauts dev. They lampooned ideas on the forums for being too different from the X-COM design, then went and added questionable new stuff anyway.
Heh, did you participate in an argument about the self-repairing aircraft?

Yeah, I notice a lot of "smaller" devs and mod teams tend to get super defensive when large numbers of people complain about design choices. Larger or more experienced/mature teams tend to either have dedicated people to interact with users or just better forum discipline. I got a mild kick out of visiting the forums for a battlestar galactica mod for freespace open and "discussing" the possibility of in-flight reloading or greater ammo allowance during missions. I think the mission that made me stop playing was one where they put you against a basestar with the objective of destroying some launchers on it or something, and I had enough rockets to knock one (out of two or three) of the launchers down to half health. Apparently, I wasn't the first guy who complained because I got internet-yelled at. Good times.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Jaymann »

I see this is now available as early access on Steam for $20, with positive reviews. Has anyone taken the plunge lately?
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

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one of my friends gifted me this last night. Its actually better than I expected. A lot more too it than the original so far and Im just in the first area.
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Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Glycerine »

Did they ever fix the horrendously long load times? I tried the beta release and it kept pausing at the wrong times to load the next level. Like right in the middle of the intro tram ride it had to stop and spend a good few minutes loading, real immersion breaker there.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Daehawk »

Was just playing more. Haven't noticed long loads. The longest for me is when I start and its like 5 sec. The area loads are about 2 sec if that.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Daehawk »

Finished! SO glad it ended the way it did when it did.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Jag »

Daehawk wrote: Mon Dec 25, 2017 7:28 pm one of my friends gifted me this last night. Its actually better than I expected. A lot more too it than the original so far and Im just in the first area.
I bought it on sale, but didn't realize it is the same game as Half Life. It sounds like it's probably worth it for another play through.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Pyperkub »

Xen update:
XEN
We’ve made a lot of progress since December. With the exception of a few places (mainly loading between chapters), Xen is playable from start to finish...

...We have a lot of work left to do, and we have decided not to give timelines so that we do not let our community down again; however in the grand scheme of Black Mesa we are VERY close, and we are super excited about delivering our version of Xen!
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Daehawk »

One play through was enough for me. I found I didn't think HL was as good as I remember. Their remake was great. But I have ZERO interest in playing Xen area again..ever.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by AWS260 »

however in the grand scheme of Black Mesa we are VERY close
So... two more years?
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Jolor »

AWS260 wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 8:48 pm
however in the grand scheme of Black Mesa we are VERY close
So... two more years?
Way off. March 6, 2020 NOT April 9, 2020.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Daehawk »

Black Mesa – Zero Punctuation

Good review.....liked the boots and the comment on a decent human being in a republican senate :)
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by AWS260 »

I finally made it through Black Mesa. It's a really impressive achievement -- the re-imagined Xen is extraordinarily creative and beautiful. But I so over jumping puzzles. So many jumping puzzles. If I never see another jumping puzzle in my life I will die a happy man.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Is this worth it for $10?

I think I played the OG Half Life 1 maybe 1.5 times when it came out. Never finished the follow up episodes (but have always wanted to). I think I made it most of the way through the first Ep, never started Ep 2.

95% Steam reviews (1,603)

When you look it up on Metacritic, half the reviews are from 2012, and the other half from last year! ??

In any case, they are all great - like 90'ish.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Blackhawk »

The best way to describe it is as a Half-Life 1 remix. It hits the same basic locations and follows the same basic story, but everything is visually updated and puzzles/activities that have long since become outdated have been improved or replaced.

The date stretch is because it started out way back when as a Half-Life 2 mod that covered the first half of the game. It got big enough that it went commercial and they released the whole shebang as a single product (at least this is how I remember it going - this thread from 2015 was from when they made the announcement they were going commercial.)
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Thanks. Interesting that they were reviewing a mod though (2012) since I can’t even find reviews of real/full games quite often.

Also, no idea how I’m just now hearing about this considering how much I liked HL.

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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Carpet_pissr »

OK, I played for a few hours last night, very intense! But my God, the length of that initial tram journey...sheesh! :D Really enjoying it so far, and thankfully have not gotten to the jumping puzzles yet (unless the part I am currently stuck is wanting me to find some kind of platorm, which is highly possible).

Weird that I don't remember ANY of this. Are we sure this is a remake?! :P I am going to have to go back and look at some original HL1 videos, because NONE of this so far, rings a bell. Possible explanation is that I played through the original only once, then moved on to HL2, and played THAT multiple times, and is what is stuck in my head as "Half Life".
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Daehawk »

Finished this years ago.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Blackhawk »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:38 pm

Weird that I don't remember ANY of this. Are we sure this is a remake?! :P
I did use the term 'remix.' ;) If you've played a lot of Half-Life it's recognizable, but heavily tweaked.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Blackhawk »

Direct comparison. In order, but there are obviously spoilers if you get to parts you haven't seen.

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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Yeah, I actually went back and watched the HL1 walkthrough....and didn’t recognize it at all. :D

I did play it but man, I thought it would have been more memorable. The only vague remembrance I have is the shock that *I* was being hunted by the supposed good guys, and some outdoors area.

Ask me about memorable scenes from HL2 and I can fill a page.
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Re: Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

Post by Isgrimnur »

You haven’t lived until you’ve mortared yourself.
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