Slashdot Mirror
Black Mesa Released
ProbablyJoe writes "The long awaited Source engine remake of the Valve's original Half Life has finally been released. The initial release only includes the story up until Xen, but the developers say they'll be adding the rest of the story, along with an online multiplayer Deathmatch mode, soon. The game is available to download for free, and only requires players to install the Source SDK (included with all Source games, or a free download). The highly anticipated release has also caused a huge amount of traffic for any servers hosting the files, with GameFront, GameUpdates, and Black Mesa's own CDN brought down within minutes of the release. The project has also been approved by Steam's Greenlight program, and will hopefully be available through Steam soon, though no timeframe has been given."
Thank you Black Mesa Team!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
No crowbar nerf.
That was a joke.
Ha ha.
Fat chance.
(Anyway, this cake is great....)
The initial release only includes the story up until Xen, but the developers say they'll be adding the rest of the story, along with an online multiplayer Deathmatch mode, soon.
More episodic releases in the Half Life universe? NOOOOO!!!
/* No Comment */
Based on the development time of this, the Xen levels will take about two years.
But I'm not complaining, no one liked Xen anyway. Thank you, guys!
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
I have classes to study for and clients to work for, this is NOT a good time.
And share some bandwidth :-)
Over here: http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/misc/BlackMesa/
Mostly used to hosting linux distributions, but this looks like someone might care to download too. Go ahead and eat a few gigabit/s for us. :)
That's one thing that was better in the original version...
Why do you think he's taking them?
They are distributing a large software file to a large number of people all at once and not using BitTorrent? Dumb. Just...dumb.
Apropos captcha: amateurs
They do have a torrent, just they hosted the tracker on GameUpdates which pretty much crumbled under the weight. Why they didn't use one of the many public open high-capacity trackers I do not know.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
The BM:S site says 3.8 GB, the one in your link is 3.0 GB.... ???
There's a torrent link on the official Black Mesa site, it points to:
http://www.mediafire.com/?khmzyygg4vetko0
I'm downloading it now, Black Mesa team says "Please seed!"
This is the torrent that Mediaupdates would link to, if it were up:
http://www.mediafire.com/?khmzyygg4vetko0
Seeing that TFC came out a little after the original Half-Life, I wonder whether there will be a Source port of TFC. Like Fortress Forever but without the bugs and the developers changing the gameplay every week and mistakenly make some classes MUCH stronger than others.
I'm the doubting GP, and I've just confirmed that the torrent is indeed the same as the one on the BM:S site. Thanks for posting it here!
Stop complaining, you've had about eight years to plan for this release! :-)
Projects I honestly thought would ever see release. It's been a good past 10 days or so for fan made games.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
and only requires players to install the Source SDK (included with all Source games, or a free download)
I followed the link for the free download only to find a link to steam://run/211. Can I install the SDK without also installing Steam?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm going to seed this like a mofo on my gig connection to help out. I recommend others do the same.
I still don't understand what was wrong with the original Half-Life? I'd love to play a fan made episode of Half-Life, but if I want to play Half-Life itself, it works great in Wine.
Is anyone else sick of remakes? Fan made or official, I don't care. Try something new!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It is beyond reason why they set a private flag.
DHT would handle it just perfectly, but now a torrent is brought down because trackers can't cope.
I still don't understand what was wrong with the original Half-Life?
The graphics are 14 years old. If you're sick of the remake, just don't play it. It's not like anyone is forcing you to, or even charging you money if you actually do want to. If people want to spend their time upgrading a 14 year old game that they really love because they think it would be even better with modern(ish) graphics, they can. And for the people doing so, it serves as a nice resume builder as well, whereas making their own game would probably not receive nearly so much press and would therefore be far less impressive.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I thought there was a Half-Live 1 to 2 port from Valve itself. Can anyone comment on how this compares to it (or point out what's different to what can be found on steam?)
And no, I don't have RTFA -- no time right now!
At least get the quote right. "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
While i somewhat share your dislike of remakes in general, i don't think it's appropriate here.
Not everyone already played the original, and a younger generation is less likely to pickup an older game if it "looks like shit". An almost identical version of the game is likely to still contain every element that made half-life great, and with fancier graphics that means it will be seen as "might be worth checking out" instead of "ugly shit, pass, i'll continue to play modern warfare 15 instead".
Second, many people who loved half-life, reinstall it every so often and give it another play, but eventually that dies down (it did for me, and i'm sure i'm not alone). Black Mesa is a good excuse to give it another shot, and with improved graphics and the like, we might even run into some stuff we missed before.
Third, it's free. While i oppose people who consider there to be a no-complaints policy for everything that's free, you can't ignore it either. It's an impressive game (from what i can tell, i haven't played it yet) and for every steam gamer out there it's just one click away.
The graphics are 14 years old.
And? Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring is over 300 years old. Great works of art don't become less beautiful because they are old.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You might have a point if Girl with a Pearl Earring was a cave drawing.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Next up? Can we get Blue Shift? Opposing Force? :D
This is going to make me go install those again, I guarantee it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I have a 1 gigabit connection seeding to this torrent, you are all welcome, I will gladly utilize all 12TB of my upload bandwidth to share this with you at the fastest speeds possible.
He's thanking the people who did the conversion work. If he were to thank the maker of the game it'd be VALVe not Ion Storm Dallas.
The graphics are 14 years old.
And? Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring is over 300 years old. Great works of art don't become less beautiful because they are old.
Video games do. Well, technically they were ugly to begin with, we just didn't notice because it was the best we had (and usually better than what came before). The graphics, mind you, not the gameplay.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Valve didn't make Deus Ex, which is the best game ever.
The fact that all the direct download links appear to be overrun, but the Torrent works fine is a strong argument for why Torrenting isn't in and of itself piracy.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
I realize :
* this was a lot of work
* it's free
* mac isn't a gaming platform
* I shouldn't complain
But I somehow thought that Black Mesa would run natively on mac since it uses Source. I've been very happy playing Portal/Counter Strike/Half Life 2 on my mac.
Screw it, I might get a PC just to play Half Life again...
Nobody is forcing you to play black Mesa. Don't want it, don't install it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Source is the game engine Steam is integrated with. Why does it surprise you that a game (or mod) made in it requires Steam?
Besides which, Steam has been running for 9 years and is making money hand over fist, I doubt it's going to disappear anytime soon.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Not to mention they aged because we aren't playing on 640x480 screens anymore - people are rocking laptops with 2880x1800 screen resolutions (or tablets with 2560x1536). Or even just 1080p or 1920x1200. What looked good at VGA tends to look just terrible at the higher resolutions everyone runs at.
It's effectively going from standard-def to high-def.
Half Life's just one of those games that people like well enough to do a proper conversion.
I share your feelings about the necessity of remakes, but in the specific case of HL, there are some people who can't play the original. If you look through the forums, you'll see problems with people who can't play the original HL because of weird incompatibility issues related to its age, or who become literally nauseated with the original HL but not modern Steam engine games.
For some people, Black Mesa is an opportunity to play through HL when they can't play the original.
My ultimate feeling about this is, whatever floats people's boats is fine with me. There's good things about playing the original, there's good things about a clean faithful renovation too.
I'm way behind of games but actually tried Half-Life 2 not long ago and was duly impressed. Then tried Half-Life to get the full story - but Half-Life does feel really icky to play today.
I think it makes a lot of sense to take puzzle elements and story from Half-Life and bring everything up to the same quality level as Half-Life 2. And while graphics and sound are a big part of it, it's not all. The surroundings in Half-Life 1 are much more static in some way, it's less immersive.
you'll see problems with people who can't play the original HL because of weird incompatibility issues related to its age
That's funny. Just the other day people were saying that the big problem with Linux as a platform was constant breakage of backwards compatibility. But Half-Life works perfectly on Wine to this day.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I have a Mac and previously bought a copy of Half Life 2 along with Portal and some other stuff in a pack. Previously I was able to download some mods that weren't made specifically for Windows or Mac and they played just fine.
How exactly is Black Mesa different from those mods? I understand that it would need to be ported to Linux or Macs so... why was it packaged as an executable and not a cross-platform type mod?
I've never played the original Half Life so was kind of looking forward to this release. D'oh!
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Then why did you whine to begin with?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Never say never. Plus, having all your games locked to a single account means that if the account is marked as bad (stolen/hacked, or otherwise considered damaged) you could lose access to all your games you basically rented, should Steam Support not solve things. Why invest in a platform where you can't easily walk away and keep your games if things go sour?
I would much prefer using Steam if Valve completely removed their own DRM from the platform, such that I could back up and archive my downloaded games no matter what happens. I can do this with GOG, why not Steam? If Valve are concerned publishers won't want to use Steam without DRM, then they can elect to have DRM if they must. But most games I've played seem to require the Steam DRM at the very least, and that isn't palatable to me when you're putting down your money to buy something.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
If you ask me which I'd say not Deus Ex.
Blue shift?
Play Azure Sheep if you want to see things from a bluesuit POV.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
It works fine on windows too.
Especially after trolling others & failing as you did -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3110069&cid=41346029
As well as YOUR unjustifiable downmods to "hide" this -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3110069&cid=41346029
He said best game ever, not most boring game ever.