Black Mesa 2012 media - prepping for release

[Roy Batty]

Wow, it's about time. I'm looking forward to playing it, and I hope it lives up to the amount hype it's gotten through the years.

[LkMax]

They're releasing everything but Xen, my fav chapter. =P
At least we'll have something released and they'll hopefully do a very good job with Xen releasing it as a separeted "episode", but everyone that follows Freeman's franchise (or maybe SiN) knows it can have bad results.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Whats all the hype? R00k,Quake?

[Seven]

Thank you for updating this thread Bloodshot.

Please be sure to give me a call when the release day is.
I dont want to miss it. Screenshots look more than beautiful.
By the way, will it be free ?
Sorry for dumb question, but I dont know.

Stay tuned,
Seven

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Thank you for updating this thread Bloodshot.

Please be sure to give me a call when the release day is.
I dont want to miss it. Screenshots look more than beautiful.
By the way, will it be free ?
Sorry for dumb question, but I dont know.

Stay tuned,
Seven

PFFFFT. Best question asked here, !!!

[R00k]

Ya its a free mod for HL2.

[Bloodshot]

Apparently it got featured on the front page of BBC news.

Holy shit

[Baker]

I'm interested to see if the mod has the original "Half-Life" feel.

I've paid attention to Black Mesa off and on for a few years, I think it looked like at one point that it was never going to be finished.

[MadGypsy]

@ Seven

Here is a countdown clock

[Bloodshot]

Steam Greenlight :: Black Mesa

^It's up on greenlight. Vote it up so we can have it on steam for easy download and install, and quick updates.

[Baker]

I think Black Mesa is going to go from free to not free. Not immediately, but probably after not a very long time.

Valve + Steam + Heavy Interest + High Publicity + Poll on if you would pay for it?

Plus planned Steam achievements, etc. They clearly intend to commercialize it.

(The screenshots are great.)

[Mindf!3ldzX]

So, no, it isn't free. You must buy Half-Life 2 / or? Yea. Mods are free engines they run on aren't.

Baker is right, it will cost money in some later iteration,case in point ; Counter-Strike.

Free mod to start with, later it was shelved in retail stores with a $50-60 pricetag,and I'm sure they made a ton of money on it.

Part of Half-Life's success can be attributed to the phenomenally popular Counter-Strike, which originally appeared as a free Half-Life mod. Sold separately, Counter-Strike sold 4.2 million units at retail in its Half-Life-derived incarnation, while the updated Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and rebuilt Counter-Strike: Source sold 2.9 million and 2.1 million units respectively. The Xbox port of the game sold 1.5 million units.

10.1Million individual total sales of CounterStrike related software sold,that the origin of which was a free mod for HL1. Thats pretty epic.

[Baker]

I'm certain it has to be freely available for some period of time, because they've stated that (for years?) and wouldn't want a negative buzz or to break their word.

I think they will tactically move to non-free in amicable way (maybe selling DLC, or after a few months --- moving the game to purchase only). (See the page, just download a free SDK and you can run it)

Only maybe Version 1 is free. Version 1.1 isn't.

I think there is a tremendous demand for playing something very similar to the original Half-Life, but beautiful and modern. Half-Life 1 was a great game, Half-Life 2 they kind of stuck you somewhere and didn't let you do all that much except run around in a little boxed-in area.

[Bloodshot]

I honestly doubt it. They purposely remade every asset they had to for the intention that you would never have to pay a dime on their mod, and refused donations or any forms of money from fans over the years, as well as switching to a source SDK base which again, ensures that you don't even need to own a game to play it.

The only money they accept is for the composer, and that's for donations if you like the soundtrack, even though it's completely free too. If BM was going to be a payed title, they would have struck a deal with Valve a while back because Valve has expressed interest in it, and they had the quality work to back it up.

And becoming commercial would force them to have to port to the newest version of source, which they explicitly said they won't be doing, on a number of occasions.

[golden_boy]

If it's on Greenlight, they'll have to make their 100 bucks back, no?