Black Mesa

[Geckothan]

Are you playing it for the first time after a fresh installation? I seem to remember source games stuttering a whole lot the first time through, until all of their assets had been accessed at least once (mostly an issue when loading speech or starting new chapters with new sets of textures/props). I've never figured out why, and I'm not sure whether it's just an old bug that has since been fixed (I haven't played any source games in a long time), but it was definitely a noticeable issue for me.

[Robert Maxwell]

If that's the problem, then it is most likely the building of a texture cache that makes it stutter. Again, something a slow disk and/or high fragmentation would make that much worse.

[Reverend]

Yes it's a fresh install (though not the first time ever on this machine) and yes I did try defraging & verifying the cache...it helped a little but not much. It's still pretty noticeable.

I'm a bit surprised this is the first time I've encountered this problem. In the past this machine has coped with HL2 & the episodes, Portal 1&2, L4D 1&2 and TF2 without so much as a glitch. The only thing I can think of that's changed is that I've probably upgraded the GPU drives a few times. Oh well, I'll just chug along and see if matters improve on their own.

In other news Black Mesa has been greenlit on Steam. No clue if it'll make it on before friday. I'd be surprised if it does but I think I'll wait for Steam regardless...I mean I'm only in Ravenholm and have a long ways to go yet.

[Owain Taggart]

I'm curious to see if Black Mesa will have added new gaming elements that the original HL didn't have that have only been made popular recently.

[Reverend]

^From what I gather, with the exception of iron sights, I think they've stayed pretty faithful to the original. So no regenerating health, no only carrying two weapons and no cover mechanics. Thankfully.

[Owain Taggart]

And it's out. Shacknews is hosting it:

http://www.shacknews.com/file/32999/...dows-free-game

[Chris3123]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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And it's out. Shacknews is hosting it:

http://www.shacknews.com/file/32999/...dows-free-game

The official site has links to multiple download mirrors, in case this one isn't working out for everyone.

Massive filesize warning: The download is about 3.8 GB in size!

[DonIago]

Downloading now. I've been waiting for this for ages.

[Reverend]

Played some of it last night. Very good work overall. Easily some of the best work I've seen in a fan-made mod. A few things did bother me though, mostly minor audio stuff like the pistol firing sound not being quite right, the voice actor impersonating Eli Vance sounding way off (though he does a fine job on Kleiner and the security guards) and for some reason the crowbar doesn't *feel* right somehow. Like I said though, minor stuff.

I'm having fun spotting the in-jokes and easter eggs. Little things mostly like Kliener's instant infatuation with a certain headcrab, Eli mentioning his family etc. They are however being careful not to pile on the HL2 references, so it's not too obtrusive...though I did find an "in case of emergency, grab the nearest crowbar" sign. Oh, and who knew ChuckleVision was so popular in New Mexico?

Just for fun, here's a side-by-side comparison of "Inbound".

[Chemahkuu]

According to Steam a friend of mine is now playing it, so the UK Steam has it at least.

[Geckothan]

Gonna have to tweak up a proper confined SELinux policy for Wine and get Steam installed and working properly! Desperate to play this, but I can't be bothered to install Windows

[Reverend]

Chemahkuu wrote:

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According to Steam a friend of mine is now playing it, so the UK Steam has it at least.

I don't think so. Since it's a mod for 'Source SDK Base'07' it registers as a mod on Steam. I know it shows up in friend activities because when I finished playing this afternoon (i have pop-up disabled) a friend apparently saw I way playing and left a message about it.

As far as I know it won't be on steam proper from quite a while, which is why I decided not to wait.

[Chemahkuu]

Reverend wrote:

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I don't think so. Since it's a mod for 'Source SDK Base'07' it registers as a mod on Steam. I know it shows up in friend activities because when I finished playing this afternoon (i have pop-up disabled) a friend apparently saw I way playing and left a message about it.

As far as I know it won't be on steam proper from quite a while, which is why I decided not to wait.

Yeah I checked his profile out a while after my post and it lists it as "In-Mod" not "In-Game".

[John Clark]

I'll probably be playing this next weekend, but just gave it a quick go this morning (long enough to get the suit) and so far it feels well done.

[Owain Taggart]

Reverend wrote:

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Played some of it last night. Very good work overall. Easily some of the best work I've seen in a fan-made mod. A few things did bother me though, mostly minor audio stuff like the pistol firing sound not being quite right, the voice actor impersonating Eli Vance sounding way off (though he does a fine job on Kleiner and the security guards) and for some reason the crowbar doesn't *feel* right somehow. Like I said though, minor stuff.

Yeah, they've really done an amazing job. I even enjoy the deviations from the original game, throwing surprises our way when we think we know the game. They seem to have taken a similar approach to the Goldeneye remake, in designing something that at its core is the same game, but changes made to it to take advantage of more modern design methods and to make things look more realistic.

You're right about the crowbar. It doesn't "feel" heavy. It doesn't have that satisfying *thwack*. Also, the one thing that I really was annoyed with in the original game was the crouch-jump, which thankfully they removed in HL2, but I guess the designers felt it wouldn't be complete without the crouch-jump because it's back here. I've always felt it was really cumbersome.

I'm in the room with the cargo elevator that goes down an incline, there's an air duct that I need to climb up to before I can activate the elevator. I had a heck of a time trying to climb up to it and spent at least a half hour on that room alone, only to find out that the ladder in the hallway can be carried and climbed and then I still have to use crouch-jump just to get a little higher onto the box above. It's a little unforgiving.

And then down at the bottom of the elevator when the path crumbles, I assume I have to use crouch-jump to get onto the pipe.