On 15/09/2012 09:57 PM, Warp wrote:
> Black Mesa is a Source mod that's basically a remake / total conversion
> of Half-Life (using the modern Source engine).

I love how all the TVs are made by "Fony". ;-)

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Darren New wrote:
> On 9/15/2012 13:57, Warp wrote:
> > More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mesa_%28video_game%29
>
> And BTW, it's released, and donation-ware.
>
> http://release.blackmesasource.com/
>
> Check out the "download now" torrent bit. I haven't installed it, but I'm
> told by those who do that you basically run the installer and you're good to
> go, without having to worry about whether you already have Steam or any
> other games with the same engine or anything like that.

That wasn't what I found. After (finally) finding a mirror that actually
provided it, I downloaded and installed (accepting the defaults) the Black Mesa
mod onto a brand-new Win7 notebook and afterward could not find anything
resembling an executable.

When I then attempted to install Steam, it would not, since its default
directory was not empty. The Black Mesa installation had already put a directory
with its stuff into it.

So, I think a proper installation procedure might be as follows.

1) Download and install Steam, and register with it during installation. (This
is free, and it does not seem to be necessary to validate the required email
address for this to work.)

2) Download and install the Black Mesa mod.

3) Run the Steam executable, let it install the Source SDK 2007, then run Black
Mesa.

Also, OP: thank you very much for posting this. I bought this notebook for my
SO, and wanted to verify that it can run modern games without difficulty (even
if it heats the house while doing so). Color me impressed, by both this game and
the new 'puter. I'd never even tried to play an FPS game until now.

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On 22/09/2012 03:47 AM, waggy wrote:
> When I then attempted to install Steam, it would not, since its default
> directory was not empty. The Black Mesa installation had already put a directory
> with its stuff into it.

Ah, see, I already play a large number of Steam-powered games. ;-)

> So, I think a proper installation procedure might be as follows.
>
> 1) Download and install Steam, and register with it during installation. (This
> is free, and it does not seem to be necessary to validate the required email
> address for this to work.)
>
> 2) Download and install the Black Mesa mod.
>
> 3) Run the Steam executable, let it install the Source SDK 2007, then run Black
> Mesa.

Yes.

(Although you might find the account stops working after a while if you 
don't validate the email, I'm not sure.)

> Also, OP: thank you very much for posting this. I bought this notebook for my
> SO, and wanted to verify that it can run modern games without difficulty (even
> if it heats the house while doing so). Color me impressed, by both this game and
> the new 'puter. I'd never even tried to play an FPS game until now.

The game is certainly good stuff...

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Am 19.09.2012 06:08, schrieb Darren New:
> On 9/18/2012 2:49, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> (I didn't like that it took me almost half an hour to find a mirror which
>> would actually let me download the game.)
>
> That's what torrents are for. Quite literally - they were invented to
> make downloading massive patches faster for a large community of users.

Well, it certainly is worthwhile it if all the other download sites 
throttle their bandwidth to a lousy 100 kB/s or even 50 kB/s.

So here I am, having overcome my resentment against the concept 
("Filesharing = Software/Media Piracy = Evil"), and downloading my first 
torrent ever...

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 22/09/2012 03:47 AM, waggy wrote:
> > So, I think a proper installation procedure might be as follows.
> > [...]
>
> Yes.
>
> (Although you might find the account stops working after a while if you
> don't validate the email, I'm not sure.)

Thank-you for the sanity check. I sent these instructions, with the necessary
links, to a younger colleague who hasn't been gaming for several years.

> > Also, OP: thank you very much for posting this. I bought this notebook for my
> > SO, and wanted to verify that it can run modern games without difficulty (even
> > if it heats the house while doing so). Color me impressed, by both this game and
> > the new 'puter. I'd never even tried to play an FPS game until now.
>
> The game is certainly good stuff...

I'm wondering if the interest I've noticed is indicative of a larger trend. My
SO and I are both mid-forties, female and male, respectively. She's been a
pretty heavy casual gamer, now showing some interest in AAA games. The
colleagues I've been talking with about videogames are males in their twenties
who used to game a lot when they were kids, but gave it up while slogging
through the grueling requirements for engineering degrees. It looks like, with
the right enticements, there are at least a few people willing to open new Steam
accounts.

It's reasonable to assume that Steam and other distributors will notice if this
is a significant trend, and do some market research to figure out both how to
bring in these new customers and what these folks are likely to buy once hooked.
My intuition is that there is a gap between casual games and AAA titles that may
see a bump in demand over the next few years.

My interest is primarily in videogame development, as this is currently my Plan
B in case the engineering research thing doesn't work out. It's looking like
there is a reasonable possibility I could put a small team together if, for
example, our research grant funding dries up. A small team with limited funding
obviously wouldn't be sufficient for AAA development, but I've been kicking
around some game ideas that might appeal to casual gamers who are considering
moving up to something a bit more intense than the typical hidden object and
match-three games.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> So here I am, having overcome my resentment against the concept 
> ("Filesharing = Software/Media Piracy = Evil"), and downloading my first 
> torrent ever...

I think that resenting bittorrent because it's being used for piracy is
like reseting the internet itself for that same reason. Just because many
people use it for piracy doesn't mean you can't use it for completely
legal and legitimate goals.

With bittorrent, unlike many older sharing systems, you are sharing that
one game and *nothing else*. There's absolutely nothing to it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 22/09/2012 03:29 PM, clipka wrote:
> So here I am, having overcome my resentment against the concept
> ("Filesharing = Software/Media Piracy = Evil"), and downloading my first
> torrent ever...

I've been using Bit Torrent for *years*, and I've never downloaded 
anything even remotely illegal with it. (Unless you believe that Linux 
violates software patents and is therefore illegal...)

In fact, it was only much later that I discovered that people use it for 
illegal stuff - or at least, that some people perceive it that way. I've 
never seen any illegal torrents - then again, I've never looked for them.

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On 22/09/2012 09:43 PM, waggy wrote:
> My interest is primarily in videogame development, as this is currently my Plan
> B in case the engineering research thing doesn't work out. It's looking like
> there is a reasonable possibility I could put a small team together if, for
> example, our research grant funding dries up. A small team with limited funding
> obviously wouldn't be sufficient for AAA development, but I've been kicking
> around some game ideas that might appeal to casual gamers who are considering
> moving up to something a bit more intense than the typical hidden object and
> match-three games.

What I find interesting is this:

The original HalfLife was a AAA game. Valve licensed the Quake 2 engine 
from id Software, for God knows how much money, and then spent [I would 
imagine] a considerable amount of time modifying it. They then built an 
entire game running on it. A whole heap of time, money and energy went 
into that game.

HalfLife 2 was based on the Source engine, an even more radically 
modified version of the old Quake engine. HL2:EP1 and HL2:EP2 saw even 
more features added to this engine. It represents a couple of 
man-centuries of work, I would imagine. All three of these games are 
definitely AAA titles.

Black Mesa is not a AAA title. As far as I can tell, nobody even got 
paid. But unlike when Valve paid id Software a crapload of money to 
license their game engine, the people behind Black Mesa were able to use 
the very latest version of the Source engine *for free*. They also used 
a whole bunch of game assets from HL2, CSS and similar. They can only do 
this because the game is free, of course; if you wanted to /sell/ this 
game, you'd have to license the technology.

Now, I don't imagine that one person could throw together a game like 
Black Mesa in a week or two. This has clearly taken a lot of people a 
very long time to develop. But it's impressive that all this could be 
done by free collaboration, using AAA assets for which free use is 
permitted.

An interesting time for game development indeed!

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Black Mesa is not a AAA title. As far as I can tell, nobody even got 
> paid. But unlike when Valve paid id Software a crapload of money to 
> license their game engine, the people behind Black Mesa were able to use 
> the very latest version of the Source engine *for free*. They also used 
> a whole bunch of game assets from HL2, CSS and similar. They can only do 
> this because the game is free, of course; if you wanted to /sell/ this 
> game, you'd have to license the technology.

Valve seems to be a really nice and non-evil game company. When someone
makes a mod, expansion or remake of their intellectual property, Valve's
lawyers are not getting lawgasms and sending cease&desist notifications
like mad. Instead, Valve encourages and embraces fan-made works based on
their IP.

This is quite unlike many other game companies (eg. Square-Enix is one
of the most infamous ones on this regard. They are real a-holes sometimes.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 23/09/2012 10:28 AM, Warp wrote:
> Valve seems to be a really nice and non-evil game company. When someone
> makes a mod, expansion or remake of their intellectual property, Valve's
> lawyers are not getting lawgasms and sending cease&desist notifications
> like mad. Instead, Valve encourages and embraces fan-made works based on
> their IP.

Hell, they just *made* the Source Film Maker, a tool who's only purpose 
for existing is to let fans make movies using Source-powered games. 
They're literally /encouraging/ people to use their IP.

If I wanted to be cynical, I might say "yeah, but you need to buy a 
Source-powered game in order to *use* SFM!" Except that, no, you don't. 
Check this out: TF2 is available *for free*! o_O

(Of course, TF2 also includes a trading system based on micropayments in 
real currency, but whatever...)

Valve's business model seems to be, loosely, "make people excited about 
your stuff, and they will be queuing up to buy more of it".

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