Black Mesa Releasing Sept. 14th

polonyc2 said:
if you look at some of the graphics improvements and changes they made to the game you'll see that $20 is well worth it, even in its current state...this is a high quality remake...

https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1594703306631918308
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Oh I know, I played it back at release in 2012, if you look at Page 5 of this thread. Installing mods is old hat to a man who played the original.

I just used to replay the game a lot, so I figured giving it a break until they finished Xen would give me more enticement to play it through again.

The longer you wait between plays, the less likely you are to remember every single part like I used to :D
 
defaultluser said:
The mod was pretty well done, but I'm not dropping $20 just to have it integrated into Steam until they add the rest of the game.

I don't pre-order from groups that have slower delivery dates than Valve themselves. Glad to hear there's still signs of life :D
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Even without Xen the current version far surpasses the original mod version.
 
When I saw this at the top at the list I was all OMG XEN FINALLY.

Nope, again... D=
 
Bigbacon said:
Xen was the worst part anyway
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Yeah - Whenever I play through I always end my playthrough once you enter the portal to Xen. Although i'll be excited to see how it looks with updated graphics.
 
Mchart said:
Yeah - Whenever I play through I always end my playthrough once you enter the portal to Xen. Although i'll be excited to see how it looks with updated graphics.
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I think they're adding content to the Xen levels with this version- expanded areas with certain sections that Valve had to cut out being re-introduced...overall it seems like the Black Mesa team knows that most consider Xen the worst part of the game so they're trying to update it to make it better
 
Well damn, it was meant to be: they have Black Mesa on sale today. Someone wants players for their soon to be finished game :D

I'll start the play through now, and hope fore Xen by the time I get there
 
Yeah- Xen got basically tossed entirely and they decided to start over and make it feel more like the rest of the game, instead of suddenly turning into a platform jumping FPS... I'm hoping it works!
 
McClintoc said:
Can we get the Xen levels free if we already the incomplete Black Mesa?
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it's free if you already own the paid version of the game...it's currently on sale during the Steam Summer sale for $7.99 (although it's weird that the price has gone up...I paid $4.99 during the last Steam sale)
 
I've been holding off playing black mesa so they have a chance to release Zen before I get there. I got to the giant alien that you electrocute, so taking a break. I'm pretty sure that's over halfway to zen.

EDIT: and yes, the graphics improvements over the original Black Mesa Source Mod more than paid for the 8 bucks I paid. Zen s still a wanted addition, but this is well worth it so far. Much higher resolution texytures, and real-time lighting/custom shadow engine make this look gorgeous.
 
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polonyc2 said:
it's free if you already own the paid version of the game...it's currently on sale during the Steam Summer sale for $7.99 (although it's weird that the price has gone up...I paid $4.99 during the last Steam sale)
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Given that a lot of the Xen assets were put in the public build of the game a while back i'd say it's likely happening soon. For $8 this is a steal honestly.
 
Yay, picked it up yesterday. Fantastic game and looking forward to playing the newly designed Xen levels.
 
Mchart said:
Given that a lot of the Xen assets were put in the public build of the game a while back i'd say it's likely happening soon. For $8 this is a steal honestly.
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Yeah, I feel they're stealing from me by making me buy not just a game I already purchased three times through various bundles, but making me pay for something that was a free mod a few years ago.
 
M76 said:
Yeah, I feel they're stealing from me by making me buy not just a game I already purchased three times through various bundles, but making me pay for something that was a free mod a few years ago.
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I thought you could still download the free mod? But I admit I haven't checked.

You can always play your existing copies, and quit bitching in this thread :D
 
M76 said:
Yeah, I feel they're stealing from me by making me buy not just a game I already purchased three times through various bundles, but making me pay for something that was a free mod a few years ago.
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You can still download the free mod. You just will be missing the substantial changes they've made. The engine has been modified substantially at this point.
 
the free mod will be missing a lot of the cool new features and graphics improvements...unless you're totally broke then pay the few bucks and get the 'real' version
 
polonyc2 said:
the free mod will be missing a lot of the cool new features and graphics improvements...unless you're totally broke then pay the few bucks and get the 'real' version
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I just feel, that after making billions on players valve could really afford to make this one on the house. The ever criticized ea is always giving away games on origin.
 
twonunpackmule said:
It's not made by Valve.
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Sorry, who said it was made by them? Or are you suggesting they don't have the power to make it free if it wasn't made by them? They could easily pay the part of the creators from their vest pocket. Most of the price goes into their pockets from such low priced games anyway. So it's not like they'd have to throw in more than like $2 to compensate the devs for each copy given away.
 
M76 said:
I just feel, that after making billions on players valve could really afford to make this one on the house. The ever criticized ea is always giving away games on origin.
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EA doesn't give away new games on Origin. They give away ancient games they haven't touched, and just assume you'll get it working.

This is an "old" game built on a brand-new engine with totally new assets with features not used in any existing Valve game.

The only thing that's the same are the maps and story. And those have gotten some tweaks as well.

The sale price is absolutely a steal for how well designed this is. Remember, the story boarding and basic map design is only 1/3 of the effort of making a game. They had to make all the assets from scratch.
 
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defaultluser said:
EA doesn't give away new games on Origin. They give away ancient games they haven't touched, and just assume you'll get it working.

This is an "old" game built on a brand-new engine with totally new assets with features not used in any existing Valve game.

The only thing that's the same are the maps and story. And those have gotten some tweaks as well.

The sale price is absolutely a steal for how well designed this is. Remember, the story boarding and basic map design is only 1/3 of the effort of making a game. They had to make all the assets from scratch.
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I'm really not a fan of making people buy games over again. I think "re-masters" should be free to those who already own a particular game. As a matter of principle.
It always left a bad taste in my mouth when I had to re-buy games in the past.
 
M76 said:
I'm really not a fan of making people buy games over again. I think "re-masters" should be free to those who already own a particular game. As a matter of principle.
It always left a bad taste in my mouth when I had to re-buy games in the past.
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So you don't think that all the effort put into making HalfLife look as pretty as it should have been is worth twenty bucks?

You know that this is not zero effort, right?

I could agree with you on shit like Skyrim: Extra Special Ultra Mega Edition NOT being a free upgrade to existing owners. But that's only seven years old, and still being ported to new platforms. It's the same fucking engine, with a few asset tweaks and better textures.

Halflife 1 is twenty years old, and needs everything to be built form scratch, including the engine. That's not cheap, and it's got a much smaller audience than yet-another Skyrim release, so finding interest from Valve to fund it would be difficult.

Valve is the exception to the rule, as most companies doing these re-releases from ten+ years ago with upgraded assets and engines are not rich bitch like Valve, so the going rate for these things is twenty bucks.

OR you can go through the trouble of trying to get Half-life original running on Windows 10? Last time I tried it on Windows 7, I got an unavoidable game-ending crash during one elevator ride, so it's not exactly running perfect anymore.

Still think there's no value in these re-releases? I bet you're the same bitchy dude who insists on getting the Blu-Ray of your favorite movies free just because you paid for a crappy DVD from the Walmart clearance bin fifteen years ago? If you can see a difference, then it was obviously not zero effort.
 
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M76 said:
I'm really not a fan of making people buy games over again. I think "re-masters" should be free to those who already own a particular game. As a matter of principle.
It always left a bad taste in my mouth when I had to re-buy games in the past.
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I think it depends on the scope of the remaster. If it's just high-res assets over the old engine, old models, etc...then yeah, that should be free. Those assets likely already existed and required little to no effort to implement. Same with stuff like Nintendo's "Virtual Console" games where it's just NES/SNES stuff running in an emulator, essentially.

If it's something like the remaster of Shadow of the Colossus where they basically rebuilt all of the assets from scratch...then I think they deserve money for that. Maybe not a full-price $60, but $30-40 seems fair.
 
M76 said:
I'm really not a fan of making people buy games over again. I think "re-masters" should be free to those who already own a particular game. As a matter of principle.
It always left a bad taste in my mouth when I had to re-buy games in the past.
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Developers would not bother to spend the time and money if consumers were not willing to pay for it. This one is really worth it. On the other hand, some of the other remasters seemed like blatant cash grabs (Dark Souls, ahem).
 
whether you agree with the concept of a remaster or remake...the fact that Black Mesa is always on sale for $5-$8 is a steal for the amount of work they put into this...I played the free mod years back but this paid version is a significant upgrade even over that...I didn't hesitate to buy it for $4.99 during the last Steam Winter sale
 
the 1st post in this thread was from 2012 and stated that the release date was Sept 14th...would be ironic if the date ends up being close to the actual date- but 6 years later :D ...I think anyone interested in the game should buy it during the current Steam sale as the price will go back up to $19.99 after that...with the Xen levels close to finished I think this will be the last chance the nab the game for cheap until the Steam 2018 Winter sale
 
M76 said:
Sorry, who said it was made by them? Or are you suggesting they don't have the power to make it free if it wasn't made by them? They could easily pay the part of the creators from their vest pocket. Most of the price goes into their pockets from such low priced games anyway. So it's not like they'd have to throw in more than like $2 to compensate the devs for each copy given away.
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This is the most entitled opinion on the work of others that I've read in awhile. No hyperbole.
 
There are three 'tiers' or remastering:

Low effort tier, AKA "HD Edition" "Special Edition" "Definitive Edition": Take the same engine, same assets, same art and change the source code to render at higher resolution, compile for the target hardware, bug test (optional) and release. End result is most likely only as good as or worse than an emulated version of the original.

Medium effort tier, AKA "Remastered Edition" "Evolved": Take the original game and improve the assets, replace most art, potentially import the game into a new engine. End result looks and feels like the original game did in your mind when you first played it.

High effort tier, Usually with a new name or original title: Complete and total rebuild of the original game from the ground-up. All new coding, assets, art, all created to recreate the original game with modern-fidelity and game design. This is a wholly new, but familiar experience, allowing you to experience the soul original with a new, modern view.


Black mesa is a high-effort remastering. It's not a re-skin or a code update. It's completely new from the ground up.
 
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twonunpackmule said:
This is the most entitled opinion on the work of others that I've read in awhile. No hyperbole.
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What you percieve as being entitled is actually being fed up. I'm sick and tired of publishers making me re-buy games I already own. And yes it is unfortunate that my patience has ran out here and now with black mesa which might be the least deserving of my spite. But I've drawn a line in the sand and I'm not going to re-buy a game ever again that I already purchased before, I've done it one too many times.
 
defaultluser said:
So you don't think that all the effort put into making HalfLife look as pretty as it should have been is worth twenty bucks?

You know that this is not zero effort, right?

I could agree with you on shit like Skyrim: Extra Special Ultra Mega Edition NOT being a free upgrade to existing owners. But that's only seven years old, and still being ported to new platforms. It's the same fucking engine, with a few asset tweaks and better textures.

Halflife 1 is twenty years old, and needs everything to be built form scratch, including the engine. That's not cheap, and it's got a much smaller audience than yet-another Skyrim release, so finding interest from Valve to fund it would be difficult.

Valve is the exception to the rule, as most companies doing these re-releases from ten+ years ago with upgraded assets and engines are not rich bitch like Valve, so the going rate for these things is twenty bucks.

OR you can go through the trouble of trying to get Half-life original running on Windows 10? Last time I tried it on Windows 7, I got an unavoidable game-ending crash during one elevator ride, so it's not exactly running perfect anymore.

Still think there's no value in these re-releases? I bet you're the same bitchy dude who insists on getting the Blu-Ray of your favorite movies free just because you paid for a crappy DVD from the Walmart clearance bin fifteen years ago? If you can see a difference, then it was obviously not zero effort.
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Funny that you'd bring that up. Since it is the studios who insist that you're paying for the right to view the movie and not the media it is delivered on. So by that definition you should be able to exchange it to the bluray version if you already have the dvd version. Since you already paid for the home viewing rights.

What I don't agree with is making people who are already your paying customers and already paid for a product pay the same as those who gave you fuck all until now. I'm not saying it's zero effort, but at the bare minimum existing owners should get a significant discount, when buying a new version of the product they already purchased before. Be it a re-mastered game, or a bluray version of a movie.
 
M76 said:
Yeah, I feel they're stealing from me by making me buy not just a game I already purchased three times through various bundles, but making me pay for something that was a free mod a few years ago.
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I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around this. You feel like their stealing from you? For starters, nobody is "making" you buy anything. If you have a problem with buying a remake of a game you already own, don't buy it. Go about your business and play something else. What it really sounds like you want is for a dev team to work really hard to give you a highly polished, enjoyable game, but you don't feel they deserve to be paid for their years of hard work because you already own the game in another form. Sounds to me that you're the one who wants to steal from them, not the other way around.


M76 said:
Funny that you'd bring that up. Since it is the studios who insist that you're paying for the right to view the movie and not the media it is delivered on. So by that definition you should be able to exchange it to the bluray version if you already have the dvd version. Since you already paid for the home viewing rights.

What I don't agree with is making people who are already your paying customers and already paid for a product pay the same as those who gave you fuck all until now. I'm not saying it's zero effort, but at the bare minimum existing owners should get a significant discount, when buying a new version of the product they already purchased before. Be it a re-mastered game, or a bluray version of a movie.
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What your asking for doesn't really make sense. People often seem to forget that content creators, whether game developers, movie studios, musicians, etc. are businesses. They don't make your entertainment out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it to run a profitable business. You do realize that there is a cost to the things you are asking for. Even something like a Blu-Ray (or 4K these days) rerelease of a movie costs money. There is the cost to remaster and reprint the movie, packaging, handling, etc. If they gave it to you for free because you already paid for a lesser version, they lose money by having you as a customer. Same goes for video game remasters. Even the HD upscale re-releases cost money. If they gave them away, they don't make money, which means they have no reason to do it. As you get into the higher quality remasters with improved assets, or in the case of something like Black Mesa, which is rebuilt from the ground up, you're talking a lot of time and money. Try and look at this objectively... games that get remade, remastered, etc. are done so because they were popular enough to warrant a re-release. If everyone that already owned the original gets a significant discount, that means the majority of their potential customer base they are not really profiting on. And if they can't make a profit, we go back to the original point that these are businesses, not charity. They have employees to pay, future endeavors to fund, etc. If they had to nearly give away these games to most of their customers, there would be no point in making them at all.

I can't stress it enough. Nobody is forcing you to buy the HD remaster of a game, or the Blu-Ray copy of a DVD you already own. If you are happy with your original purchase, continue to enjoy it just like you did when you first bought it. Nobody is taking anything away from you by not giving you an updated version of what you already own. But if something newer and better comes out, you don't just have the right to have the better version because you already own the original. Pay up if you want the better version. If you have a problem with that, pretend it doesn't exist and continue to enjoy what you already own. It would be like you showing up to work and being told you're not because paid today because you're updating something you've already worked on. Bullshit, ammirite?! If you are working, you get paid. No different for the people making your digital entertainment.
 
Viper87227 said:
I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around this. You feel like their stealing from you? For starters, nobody is "making" you buy anything. If you have a problem with buying a remake of a game you already own, don't buy it. Go about your business and play something else. What it really sounds like you want is for a dev team to work really hard to give you a highly polished, enjoyable game, but you don't feel they deserve to be paid for their years of hard work because you already own the game in another form. Sounds to me that you're the one who wants to steal from them, not the other way around.




What your asking for doesn't really make sense. People often seem to forget that content creators, whether game developers, movie studios, musicians, etc. are businesses. They don't make your entertainment out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it to run a profitable business. You do realize that there is a cost to the things you are asking for. Even something like a Blu-Ray (or 4K these days) rerelease of a movie costs money. There is the cost to remaster and reprint the movie, packaging, handling, etc. If they gave it to you for free because you already paid for a lesser version, they lose money by having you as a customer. Same goes for video game remasters. Even the HD upscale re-releases cost money. If they gave them away, they don't make money, which means they have no reason to do it. As you get into the higher quality remasters with improved assets, or in the case of something like Black Mesa, which is rebuilt from the ground up, you're talking a lot of time and money. Try and look at this objectively... games that get remade, remastered, etc. are done so because they were popular enough to warrant a re-release. If everyone that already owned the original gets a significant discount, that means the majority of their potential customer base they are not really profiting on. And if they can't make a profit, we go back to the original point that these are businesses, not charity. They have employees to pay, future endeavors to fund, etc. If they had to nearly give away these games to most of their customers, there would be no point in making them at all.

I can't stress it enough. Nobody is forcing you to buy the HD remaster of a game, or the Blu-Ray copy of a DVD you already own. If you are happy with your original purchase, continue to enjoy it just like you did when you first bought it. Nobody is taking anything away from you by not giving you an updated version of what you already own. But if something newer and better comes out, you don't just have the right to have the better version because you already own the original. Pay up if you want the better version. If you have a problem with that, pretend it doesn't exist and continue to enjoy what you already own. It would be like you showing up to work and being told you're not because paid today because you're updating something you've already worked on. Bullshit, ammirite?! If you are working, you get paid. No different for the people making your digital entertainment.
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We're running circles around my point.
My sense of injustice is tingling because the person who never purchased the original release can get their hands on the better version for the same price as those who did buy it earlier. In a sense, they the original purchasers paid for the remaster by supporting the company, and new customers reap the benefits. Perhaps not in this particular case because it was made by a third party and not funded by valve, but my beef is not specifically with black mesa, it is the way they skin us twice or three times.

I understand how business works, but just because the economic system is set up in a way that you can sell your grandma doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

At the end of the day they need returning customers, and for that they need customer satisfaction. And a discount given to long standing paying customers goes a long way in achieving that. So I don't think it would be a bad business model either. If they give a discount to existing customers, they still make money on it. It even incentifies those people to buy it again.

Customer appreciation is zero nilch nada nowadays. Early adopters and standing customers are not getting rewarded, they're getting shafted and not just in gaming. For example when ISPs offer discounts in never applies to those who already have a subscription, only those who didn't want it earlier, or didn't want to pay for it earlier. So why should miss mary rottencrotch from 6B get it for 20% less than I've been paying for the past 3 years, and continue to pay for the next year? I'm subsidising their access. Why?

You can try to dismiss this as entitlement, but it is an existing and widespread trend.
 
M76 said:
We're running circles around my point.
My sense of injustice is tingling because the person who never purchased the original release can get their hands on the better version for the same price as those who did buy it earlier. In a sense, they the original purchasers paid for the remaster by supporting the company, and new customers reap the benefits. Perhaps not in this particular case because it was made by a third party and not funded by valve, but my beef is not specifically with black mesa, it is the way they skin us twice or three times.
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I guess I just don't see it the way you do. Everything you seem to be upset about can be avoided by choices you are free to make. Don't like double dipping for a remaster, then don't, play your original copy and be happy with it. Don't like the idea of others getting a remaster off of your original purchase, then do like they do and wait for the remaster. Nobody is forcing your hand in any of these situations, but expecting a free (or heavily discounted) upgrade often doesn't make financial sense for the company doing the work. And if it doesn't make financial sense, it doesn't happen at all.
 
M76 said:
Funny that you'd bring that up. Since it is the studios who insist that you're paying for the right to view the movie and not the media it is delivered on. So by that definition you should be able to exchange it to the bluray version if you already have the dvd version. Since you already paid for the home viewing rights.
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If the world worked like that, we'd start with the best, and work our way downwards.

You know it doesn't work that way. Old movies (and even some newer ones) are shot on shitty 35mm film and then stored in shitty vaults where they still age and give you all the best in film grain. You can BARELY get 4k resolution out of those cheap 35mm when they were new, let-alone twenty years later.

It takes us years to work-up to the next big step in digital resolution and fidelity. For something that started in DVD, capturing those in 1080p, let-alone 4k requires remastering (removing all the crap, while not blurring the living shit out of the movie).

The costs of these remasters goes down every year, but they are never free. They do the remaster when the cost of doing it is exceeded by expected sales. If they gave it away for free to consumers, the only remasters that would ever happen are trash films you see on TV all the time (they would be paid for by the networks).

But of course the networks would never release those movies they paid to remaster to you on disc for free. Printing discs costs money, even in your dreamworld.

The home digital movie revolution means you end-up paying for the restoration, if you want to add some less-popular movies to your collection. Because that technology is constantly advancing.

It may well work that way in the future when everything is digital and is shot in 8k, but we're not even close to that yet. So maybe you can be more accepting of the cost of advancements being paid for by consumers like you that are SLOWLY moving us toward a "best first, pay once" solution you're dreaming of here
 
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Viper87227 said:
I guess I just don't see it the way you do. Everything you seem to be upset about can be avoided by choices you are free to make. Don't like double dipping for a remaster, then don't, play your original copy and be happy with it. Don't like the idea of others getting a remaster off of your original purchase, then do like they do and wait for the remaster. Nobody is forcing your hand in any of these situations, but expecting a free (or heavily discounted) upgrade often doesn't make financial sense for the company doing the work. And if it doesn't make financial sense, it doesn't happen at all.
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You say I have a choice, but my lack of purchase won't make this injustice go away.

And it does make financial sense, some started to realize that. I suspect a lot more owners of skyrim purchased the special edition because it was offered for a lower price to those who had the original on steam. I'd certainly have skipped that if not for the significant discount.
 
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