Black Mesa, the Half-Life remake, soon to be sold on steam, and uses a new engine?

ZacD

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=17088

I just thing this whole situation is a bit weird and interesting, there's 2 really noteworthy things about this. Valve is awesome of allowing this game to be made, given away for free, and also sold on their store. Now here's the interesting part;

We aren't taking features away from the free version. The free version of the game has been ported to Source 2013. Right now, that version is functionally equivalent to the released version of Black Mesa we released a year ago. When we got on greenlight, we were forced to move to another engine. Right now, we can't tell you what that engine is due to our licensing agreement. Being on this new engine allows us to change how the engine works, modify tools, etc; things we plain and simply cannot do for the free version. I plan to open source the black mesa code for the free version. I also want the paid version to be open source (only client and server, nothing else) but we need to talk to VALVe about that. We want both versions of the game to be as moddable as possible. I don't have a timetable on that part just yet.

They were forced to use another engine, and the game is already running and ready to be released using it, I'm guessing the new engine might be a new version of Source...

But who knows, we'll see soon.



EDIT: Not Source 2

Just to dispel a large rumor (and I know I'll be viewed as the grinch that stole christmas): We are NOT on Source 2. It wouldn't make sense for a company to license tech they haven't proven yet with a released title to a mod team. Our visial however, WILL be improved.

Still it'll be cool to see if it looks any better, it was already a good looking game. Still there must be a reason why they cannot say what engine it is...

EarthQuake

That's interesting, you have to imagine that it is some version of source otherwise the entire game would need to basically be re-made. So maybe just a dev licence of source with full source etc?

illo

could be ue4.

Steve Schulze

Didn't Source get updated to a newer (though not all that appreciably different) version a little while back? I remember TF2 doing some kind of major updating and I think the same went for Portal and Counterstrike as well.

ZacD

Well they said the free version has been moved over to Source 2013, but the paid version is using something else.

eld

Isn't this just a licensing deal with valve? The IP being used in this way probably means a healthy cut for valve when the game is sold.

The whole engine change is very weird and cryptic as well, "being forced" etc. Valve would be happy to license source to any developer for payment or another percentage cut.

They have also had MANY contributors over they years, they would have issues selling this thing unless they remade all the assets, which would also be weird if they don't have any money to hire the manpower to make them to begin with, or did contributors sign over all rights over the years?

They do mention improved visuals though, is this just tech or also new assets?


also, this little gem on the forum:

Glad to hear it!

Now, one last queston: You said you cannot reveil the engine, and I respeect that! ...but maybe this is crazy to ask, or maybe you can't answer this: But is it a VALVe engine?

---

Do you think we'd have a license agreement with VALVe if we were on another engine? :P

Steve Schulze

ZacD wrote: »

Well they said the free version has been moved over to Source 2013, but the paid version is using something else.

That'll be me failing reading comprehension again.

It could be something similar though. Maybe an engine overhaul in preparation for the Steam console deally or some such thing.

NegevPro

I think the bigger piece of information is whether or not they are going to improve on previous assets. A new engine can make a game look better, but if they're keeping the same assets then what's the point?

Richard Kain

I downloaded the original version of Black Mesa, and really liked it. If they bring this through Greenlight, I'll throw a few dollars at them as a thank-you. I did the same for The Stanley Parable. They deserve to be rewarded/compensated for this labor of love.

ZacD

NegevPro wrote: »

I think the bigger piece of information is whether or not they are going to improve on previous assets. A new engine can make a game look better, but if they're keeping the same assets then what's the point?

It sounds like they have to move to a different engine in order to have the game on the steam store, it's not just because they wanted to switch. Though a new engine could make lighting and assets look better, they did say they were limited by a lot of things in source.

passerby

think it would have to be source or idtech based or all there previous bsp work would have to be re done.

eld

That's only the tip of the mountain required for porting work, it's most definitely source, albeit the licensing version where you get the whole source code.

passerby

eld wrote: »

That's only the tip of the mountain required for porting work, it's most definitely source, albeit the licensing version where you get the whole source code.

ya true, that would also give them the opportunity to play with a different kinda rendering too, or maybe implementing dynamic lights if they had full source code. So that could be the improved visuals they are talking about.