Slashdot Mirror
Black Mesa Nearing Completion, Trailer Released
Today, the Black Mesa Team released an impressive trailer for their remake of Half-Life . The remake is a total-conversion mod for Half-Life 2, bringing the updated graphics and AI of the Source engine to the original game. The team has been dropping hints lately that the project, which began in 2004, is almost done, and the trailer confirms that it will be out in 2009. They also recently announced that they've "dropped Counter-Strike: Source as a requirement for Black Mesa, and from now on, the only thing you'll need to play the mod is a Steam account with any Source engine game installed! Black Mesa is now running completely off of our own content and base Source shared content, and we felt the vastly increased user base more then [sic] justified creating all the extra assets needed to make this switch."
you pretty much answered your own question... first off you were making a port for a competing engine, not using Source. Second, they were developing TF2 so why would they want someone else making a newer version of it on a different engine while they can make money off of theirs? I bet they haven't made a big deal about it because they had no plans to make a Half Life remake and the modders are using Source.
sorry, let me rephrase slightly... Yes there is already "Half Life: Source" but it looks like the old version with updated textures and physics. I don't think they had plans to do a complete remake like TF.
Valve certainly knows this exists, and did not object to it; their only interference was requesting it not to be called Black Mesa: Source, as once planned, so people wouldn't think it is an official mod.
Half-Life:Source took the original game and moved it to the Source engine. Same old models, same old levels, same old textures - hell, they didn't even use the High Definition pack. Other than better water effects and physics, it was no improvement at all. In contrast, Black Mesa is pretty much a rebuild from scratch.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Plus, I believe that this mod was originally called "Black Mesa Source" (hence the website URL), but Valve requested the name change so that it wouldn't be confused with an official project. If they didn't approve of the project at all, they would have just shut them down then instead of only requesting a name change.
From what I've read the Left 4 Dead demo is no longer up. They pulled it so the servers could be used just for people who bought the game. Is that incorrect? I have Orange Box for my 360 but I don't have a legit copy for PC. Not really wanting to buy it a second time so I can play this mod, but from seeing the trailer, this mod looks pretty damn awesome so I'll end up buying something so I can play it.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?