It's been a while since our last news post, so we decided to report back with something small to give you heads up what we are up to.
At first, you will be happy to hear that we are alive. Cool, isn't it? We have been progressing quite smoothly for some time already.
Greenlight incoming!
The name of the article says it all. The main point of this article is to get you hyped a little bit, because we have been working on some very exciting stuff lately. This year, we will focus on Greenlight matters. Valve gave us this great opportunity to take advantage of Steam and more! If we pass through the voting phase and "get greenlighted", it will provide us even more opportunities to push our skills, Source and everything to it's limits. That means that both, Operation Black Mesa and Guard Duty are doing to be even better than we expected. Well, as long as we successfuly pass through the whole process ;).
It will be very long process. Hell, we have to get two mods through this thing! And we can't do it without your support obviously!
We imagine the whole Greenlight campaign will be running throughout the year till it gets to the grand finale, so we hope you will give us the needed support during this whole process.
Hopefully, you will get the opportunity to give us a vote quite soon. We will let you know, when we put our mods on Greenlight, so stay tuned!
Black Mesa content
This news post article may be a good opportunity to make things about the Black Mesa content clear. A lot of people keep asking us to port our mods over to Black Mesa and take an advantage of the content Black Mesa may offer.
Sadly, this is not possible and there are some serious reason why. At first, when we started the projects, one of our goals were to build a portfolio. A lot of us is looking into making the way into the industry and that means the more content we create on our own, the better. We hope you will understand it.The important is also the fact that we have spent bunch of years on the content. And now, we would simply have to throw it away. Can you imagine what this could do to the motivation of our fellow team members? Don't take it that we are selfish and think about ourselves only. There are some other reasons.
I think it's fair to say, that porting over to BM may sound like it will put off some weight from our shoulders and make things faster and easier. This, however, is not true.Using Black Mesa could restrict us quite a lot and make implementation of some needed features harder, especialy coding wise. This apply mainly to Operation Black Mesa, but also on some planned features for Guard Duty (It will not feel like a mappack and we plan to bring something fresh there).
It's also important to mention that we have some epic plans for multiplayer, that will be worth of a stand-alone product in the end. It will offer everything you loved about the original game, but will also bring in some new features, content and game modes. Our plans couldn't be fullfiled under the Black Mesa mod. We don't want to talk about the multiplayer yet though, but you will be excited about it when we start speaking of it one day!
Being completely independed project will also bring many other exciting advantages, especially if we pass through the Greenlight process. You sure will notice it one day, what we are talking about ;).
MEDIA and Facebook
No doubts you noticed some new media was added to Moddb gallery. It's definitely nothing new and these pictures are around for a while already, but they had been Facebook exclusive until now. We decided to make them non-exclusive to FB for a simple reason. We would like to motivate you joining our Facebook page. There will be some more exclusive things in the future (and even know, you still can find some exclusive tid bits there) and we also love to be in touch with all of you through many different ways, not only the forum and Moddb!
HELP WANTED
The wall of text is coming to it's end finaly. The last thing we should point out that we are looking for some talented and great persons who would love to contribute to the projects. Both projects are fairly big and the more people help us, the faster we progress. So if you have some skills, spare time and good attitude, why not join us? I'm sure you will enjoy staying on our team, which is full of rly cool people!
We are looking for everything ranging from concept artists to someone, who is good with Source particle editor! The only positions not available at the moment are composers and voice actors... And betatesters!
How to apply? It's very easy, trust us! You send us an E-mail (at applications@tripminestudios.com) or simply visit the application section on the forum. Whatever way you choose, make sure you provide us with some info about you, your skills and some examples of your previous works!
Final words
Thanks for your support throught the whole time, it's amazing that a lot of you still support us and we honestly hope, even more people will notice us and join the community. Stay tuned for the Greenlight campaign, it's going to be something big. Along with news, media, we will also launch long-awaited website for Tripmine studios and... something more. Just wait and see!
Good Luck on greenlight you've got my vote!
vote here! Steamcommunity.com
I may have never heard about either of these two mods before, but I will most assuredly vote for both on greenlight!
vote here! Steamcommunity.com
I personally am really glad (and unsurprised) you aren't using Black Mesa's assets. Not only does that restrict you in the ways you mentioned already, but it'd also take away some of the variation. I love seeing the artistic differences.
I bet you're pretty damned sick of the comparisons, too.
I'm glad someone is thinking like this. You have no idea how tiring it is people asking constantly for us to use Black Mesa content.
You have earned my official Seal of Noice!
I.imgur.com
*Noice means very nice!
and also using our own content will greatly reflect in graphics, because, I think I can say without any doubts, all this stuff is just look much better in our mods and I think we already have better content as BMS (not saying that BMS had bad, but we have just better ;) ), and this doesnt apply just to graphics itself, but also maps, lighting atmosphere, sounds, music, and ofcourse gameplay aswell, and I think, using BMS stuff would lead just to much less quality mods
There needs to be more fans like you
That would be awesome! You've got my vote :)
I´ll vote for u!
(buried)
It is a little sad that you will postpone your release due to the not invented here syndrome as Black Mesa: Source also had a nice Open Content license for their assets. There would be still a lot of stuff to be modeled and textured for your portfolios.
I guess you didn't read all the other reasons, did you?
(buried)
The technical difficulties explained are very vague. Also you don't have to just throw your work away for something else. The creative commons license allows you to build upon and modify the assets. Why not remix or just fill the gaps?
You REALLY don't get it do you, so let me spell it out for you chump!
"We are attempting to build personal Portfolios of our OWN content, so we can use it to get jobs.
Using other peoples' content means it is THEIR work, and THEIR Portfolio essentially."
I really don't understand the difficulty in just accepting this!
(buried)
I totally get it. As I mentioned in my first post: you clearly suffer from the NIH syndrome. There is a Wikipedia article about it as this is common in software development. I simply don't agree that it is a sane decision if you ever want to release before the Source 1 engine gets obsoleted by next generation technology. But it is your mod and your plans. So simply ignore me. By the way: I like the few screenshots you posted here and I hope you don't overextend yourself.
We have our own plans we CAN'T implement if we start using Black Mesa. That's also the reason.
(buried)
Is it the non-commercial clause Black Mesa content uses? Do you plan to sell the mod to Valve/Gearbox later?
No, different reasons, but we are just not speaking about them. We don't want to promise anything until we are sure about it... We don't want to promise something and then dissapoint everyone.
Looks like you got competition from someone who builds upon Black Mesa:Source https://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa-insecurity
We know about it. We don't consider it as competition. We are sure that Guard Duty still has a lot to offer.
Good luck and keep at it
I just wish Hazard Team had stayed with you guys, so that we could get all 3 Non-Gordan Freeman Half Life games in here. That would be a dream come true... Sadly with the dissolving of the Hazard Team dev team that mod is dead. Maybe you guys could remake that next? Just maybe? Oh well, I'm just glad you guys have done what you have done.
so that we could get all 3 Non-Gordan Freeman Half Life games in here...
Non-Gordan Freeman...
...GORDAN
Its a shame that Hazard Team couldn't be here with all of this. Maybe that could be your teams next project? Either way, You guys have my vote, and you are amazing!
I will vote for you guys! Just give me the word!
This is a good piece of news, but the releases of these good remakes are still far away.
keep it up, your doing a great job cant wait to play this!
Thank the LORD, I agree with why you don't want to use BM assets, you want to have more freedom, and the BM assets are a tad bit too restrictive.
When I spot such a comment, I always want to start to believe in god! :P
*SHOW ME YOUR WARFACE!!!*