Black Mesa (game mod)
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This article or section contains information about an unreleased video game. It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically as more information becomes available. |
- For the fictional location this game is based in, see Black Mesa Research Facility
Black Mesa (previously known as "Black Mesa: Source") is a third-party total conversion mod for Half-Life 2. The ultimate goal of the mod is to recreate the original Half-Life from the ground up, using the advanced capabilities of the Source engine, the improved graphics quality of Half-Life 2 and enhanced character AI, to create a new and more engrossing in-game world by introducing more varied, complex environments and more challenging, realistic gameplay. Black Mesa will be playable by anyone with legal copies of both Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source.
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[edit] Overview
Black Mesa is currently planned to include co-op gameplay, something neither the original Half-Life nor Half-Life 2 offered. The project, which began in November of 2004, was born of the discontent fans experienced when playing Half-Life: Source; when considering the living environment Valve created with Half-Life 2 using the Source engine, the original game fell far short of what many players thought could be done with the software, basically being a straight port, except for improved water and lighting effects. According to the developers,
| “ | Black Mesa: Source was built and founded on the principle that Half-Life: Source did not do the original title enough credit...[Black Mesa] set out to reconstruct the original title, giving it new environments, models, and abilities. | ” |
Black Mesa won the Mod DB "Golden Spanner Award" for the most anticipated Half-Life 2 mod of 2005. Most likely due to the amount of publicity given to an unofficial third-party mod, Valve Corporation privately asked the producers of the mod to remove the "Source" part from the title to avoid confusion on whether it is an official Valve product or not.
Some of the chapters are nearing completion and they have unreleased skins for the science personnel, and for some Xen aliens.
On Tuesday, the 28th of November 2006, the Black Mesa website was relaunched with a brand new layout. The launch coincided with a promised media release, including level shots, character models, weapon models and music samples.
On Saturday, the 16th of December 2006, media release "Stage 2" was released, which featured a revamped website, updated weapon models, revamped and new maps, Gargantua render, an animation movie of the mod's Houndeye and pictures of the Bullsquid. [1]
On Thursday, the 25th of January 2007, Black Mesa won once again the Mod DB "Golden Spanner Award" for the most anticipated Half-Life 2 mod of 2006. The development team also submitted a teaser video which includes flybys of the Test Chamber, Blast Pit, Residue Processing, Lambda Core, and Surface Tension dam areas.
On 26th of January 2007, an announcement was made looking for people to serve as voice actors.
[edit] Screenshots
 A screenshot of the "Surface Tension" level from Black Mesa, featuring HDR rendering. Both Half Life 1 and Black Mesa had the "Hoover Dam" as an example. |
 Another shot of "Surface Tension". The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 The lobby from the level "Anomalous Materials". The smaller image in the lower right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 The tram station from the level "Black Mesa: Inbound". |
 The Test Chamber in Anomalous Materials. |
 The silo exterior in Blast Pit.The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 The Residue processing factory exterior.The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 Entrance to the Lambda Core reactor labs.The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 The Lambda Core freight elevator.The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 Underwater in one of the Lambda Core coolant pools.The smaller image in the upper right corner shows the same location in the original Half-Life. |
 A render of the Gargantua in Black Mesa Source. |
[edit] Soundtrack
An original soundtrack composed and produced by the mod's sound designer, Joel Nielsen, will be released along with the modification itself, as well as independently shortly after the mod's release. Several songs for the game are already available at the official Black Mesa website.
[edit] Development team
Senior Developers
- Carlos "cman2k" Montero [Project Leader]
- Brian "bkd86" Dale [Art Department Head]
- Chris "Kester" Harrison [Lead Level Designer]
- Nathan "NateDGreat" Ayres [Lead Animator]
- Jon "Kalashnikov" Dominski [Founder / Operations]
- Jimmy "Denzil" Headdon [Founder / Documentation]
Level Designers
- Chris "Kester" Harrison
- Spencer "RabidMonkey" Rose
- Ladislav "Jackar" Jochman
- Robert "Campaignjunkie" Yang
- Daniel "Raminator" Junek
- Jean-Paul "JeanPaul" Jarreau
- Chuck "Atrocity" Wilson
- Danielle "Talia" Keptres
- Abe "Eba" Robertson
- Chris "Stormseeker" Horn
Prop Modelers
- Robert "Sanada" Chinner
- Daniel "NetWarriorDan" Escobedo
- Björn "Kobi" Claesson
- Alex "Digeridude" Allen
- Adam "Adam-Bomb" Engels
- Michael Tannock
- Andrew "Geostigma" Lukachko
- Adrian "alphameric" Mugnieco
Programmers
- James "HazardousWaster" Freedman
- Paul "zero" Peloski
Character Artists
- Chris "Lupus"
- Carlos "cman2k" Montero
- Jeff "CGJeff" Smith
- Ivan "InFanT" Vavilov
Skinners / Texture Artists
- James "orcone" Martin
- Pontus "Spitfire" Ryman
- Andrea "Piks3y" d"Avalos
- Bard "grudgE" Fleistad
- Frank "Frank" Morel
- Mark "Jenn0_Bing" Foreman
Sound Engineers
- Joel ".plink" Nielsen
Animators
- Nathan "NateDGreat3" Ayres
- Martyn "Stormy"
- Andrew "Tertles" Boetsma
Writing and Concept Art
- Ben "BlackStamp" Truman
- Brian "bkd86" Dale
- Donald "decog" Hogan
Video Editor/Director
- James "Monkey-Junkie" McVinnie
Web Development
- Carlos "cman2k" Montero [Designer]
- Ryan "rm249" Maffit [Original Programmer]
- Brett Alton [Current Developer]
[edit] Security related issues
[edit] Source code leak
On May 10, 2006, the developers of Black Mesa reported that a portion of the source code, codenamed "Alpha 5", was leaked. Screenshots of the internal alpha release were reported on at least two forums.
Shortly afterwards, the developers released an announcement about the leak and requested that if any pictures were found, to report it to the development team. This request appeared to stifle the remainder of the leak, at least for the time being.
On May 11, 2006, the developers reported that they had found the person responsible for the leak, and while he had not agreed to delete the actual alpha file from his computer, he would not take any further action against the Black Mesa team.
However, on September 9, 2006, at 9:30PM PDT, a member of the Official Garry's Mod Forums, Facepunch Studios ("curse184") posted several links, including a torrent and several RapidShare download pages, to 478.6mb-sized archives named BMS.rar in a thread entitled "[RELEASE] Black Mesa Source! Woot! (Download Links)". The member closed his post with "Credits goes to me for releasing BMS". The thread has since been deleted and the links removed.
[edit] Forums hacked
As of June 6, 2006, the Black Mesa forums were closed for repairs due to a hacker. On June 13, it was made known (though not widely) that the hacker(s) responsible either directly or indirectly damaged the forums beyond repair; the 3500+ accounts and most if not all of the forums' posts were lost.
As of June 17, 2006, the Black Mesa forums had been restarted, under Invision Power Board. The forums were hacked again the next day; it was assumed by the same hacker who had originally taken down the forums in the first place in response to derogatory comments made about them on the board; the attacker, known only as "r00t", left this message:
| “ | r00t hacked those forums. Why? Because it annoys me that you think I'm a script kiddie which hacked 2.0.4. Now I hacked 2.1.6...Anyway, all the IPB series are full of critical bugs. When they close 1 bug.. another one opens. Just like Windows. So you were hacked again...My IP is not my IP, its my little proxy and it does NOT keep any logs. No admin was hacked, it was just an exploit to byass admin login and go straight to teh (sic) admin CP as an invissible (sic) root admin. Say sorry for something and admit that I'm not a script kiddie and I'll leave you all alone. | ” |
After letting the message sit for a few hours control of the board was returned to the Black Mesa team, which has issued a policy against making any further comments about the hacker, lest they suffer through another attack. They were then hacked again, the forums once more disabled.
| “ | Allright(sic), Apology accespted(sic) and I was out so I couldn't read it. Enable it when you see that messege (sic) I'll not hack you again (myself) but I can't speak so for others. And it wasn't me who hacked you long ago. | ” |
[edit] Forum move
As a result of these attacks, the Black Mesa team moved to merge the forums with GamerNode, a large commercially-based website devoted to videogames, who had already been hosting them for some time. The merge was completed on September 7, 2006. Lead animator Nathan Ayres had this to say on the subject:
| “ | We are doing this for many reasons, the most important of which is security in our forums. Despite rumors floating around, GamerNode is not doing this for any personal gain of their own, we have been on good terms with them for a long time, and we have voluntarily agreed to be merged. | ” |
[edit] Public website hacked
On September 16, Black Mesa's public website underwent an attack that wiped all files from the database. The attack didn't seem to be directed at the team, but instead at the hosting service the website was on, M-E-Tech. Several other forums hosted by M-E-Tech, such as Leak-Free, were deleted as well. The public forums are still up and running on GamerNode's server and can be accessed by going to http://forums.gamernode.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4692
