Comments - IrritAnt01

I don't think that's true at all. An IP could be badly damaged by the creation of a poor mod.

This is about the artist's right to control how their work is used. To my mind the money is a side issue, though it is the driving force behind large companies denying permission to use their IP. If that company down the track tries to create their own "mod" and sell it, their ability to make money on it may be compromised by the existence of a freely-available community mod using their IP.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free.

I believe that good games and gameplay should stand independent of their genre, fictional setting, story, etc. Mod makers should focus on gameplay rather than recreating their favourite character from another game. After all, gameplay mechanics can't be copyrighted, right?

This mod is obviously a first attempt at serious map-making by the authors and as such should never have been released :) Eery mapper has to learn somehow, but nobody's first attempt is ever any good.

I encourage the authors to keep mapping and honing their skills - one day they'll have a mod or map pack worthy of release.

This is a very smooth and professional-feeling mod. The design is carefully through out and the basic gameplay mechanics of HL2 are leveraged to effect.

In the later parts of the mod it feels as if the makers have tried to do too much, to cram too much stuff into one scene. I like to think I have a pretty powerful system, but it began to chug during some of the larger rebel vs. combine sequences. The designers could have reduced the size of the areas and the number of NPCs and still made these scenes compelling and fun.

The voiceacting is generally excellent, although the main protagonist delivers his lines with as much emotion as someone saying they're going out to get some milk. There's no "character" to the character's voice, although the script is well written.

All in all, a very slick and fun-to-play mod. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys HL2.

I should also add that releasing the game in some sort of guerilla fashion is not a good idea as all it would do would be to antagonise Microsft and their overly-keen lawyers (plus it would be a clear breach of copyright law). At this point the modders are best served by keeping everybody on side until they can sort something out.

Once again, the internet amazes me with its staggering lack of knowledge or understanding about copyright law.

Bungie are a delevoper. They are paid by Microsoft to make the product. Microsoft owns the product and all rights to it.

It doesn't matter if it's a fan game. It doesn't matter if you're making money off it or not. Microsoft wouldn't have to sue - they could potentially get a court order to seize all the materials, and the copyright breakers could face jail time - it's not all about the civil courts, it's also about criminal courts.

On a project like this copyright covers everything from the basic concepts through to the artwork, character designs, character names, music, textures, sound - you name it, it's probably protected under copyright law.

As the owner of the rights, Microsoft have every right to ask a developer to stop infringing on their trademarks. We may not like it, we might think it's selfish or mean, but it's the way the whole thing works. If you created a brand new IP and someone else made off with it without your permission, you'd be ****** too, right?

For what it's worth, I feel for the developers. It sucks to have your game shut down especially after three years and so much obvious hard work. But it isn't over - maybe Microsoft would be willing to discuss allowing you to release the game if they're happy with its quality. Often that's a company's major concern, that an amateur mod will damage the IP because it sucks. Definitely the modders should be talking to the MS guys.

Other options include completely overhauling the game and removing all the copyrighted material and references - you could still have an RTS on a ringworld where humans fight aliens.

In some ways this is a good thing for the community as a whole as it may encourage more original material to be produced, rather than depending on established IPs.

Great dialogue, great level design, impressive visuals and a very strong understanding of pace and the limits of the Source engine.

Did I mention the great dialogue?

I'll start by saying that I enjoyed playing this mod and recommend it to anyone thinking about giving it a go.

The good stuff;
- The use of ambient sound is excellent. I played in the dark and frequently spun around when I thought I heard something behind me.
- There were some very nice scripted moments. I particularly liked the burning barrels rolling down the hill into the valley.
- Personalising the characters was great. I can't speak Czech so I don't know if the dialogue was well delivered or not :)

The not-so-good stuff;
- Optimisation doesn't seem to have been considered when designing some of the environments and encounters. I have a P4 3.0 and it chugged when overloaded by dead body ragdolls. Having dead zombies disappear, or limiting their numbers in certain areas, would have avoided this problem.
- The lack of optimisation is particularly noticeable in the forest areas. The Source engine does some beautiful stuff but it's not designed for showing really large, open spaces. Again my system chugged a little in the forest areas.
- I occasionally had difficulty telling which way to go. While the player shouldn't be led by the nose, making the maps more linear, and using some highlighting techniques would have helped.
- I found a couple of paths that could be "broken" e.g. if a wooden crate is smashed it was impossible to continue as you needed to climb on that crate to get in a window. Important objects like that need to be either indestructable, or linked to a script that reloads the game from a point when the object wasn't broken.
- The enemies were too "mixed together". That is, there didn't feel like a progression from one enemy to the next. Zombies, superzombies, headcrabs, superheadcrabs were all encountered together in a big bunch. This is a small quibble.
- Some of the outdoor areas felt unfinished. In the forest, a great deal of attention had been paid to the forest floor, but the ridges you have to climb over were featureless.

All in all, a good solid mod.

This mod suffers from the same problem a lot of mods do...whats' the point, exactly?

Designers need to ask themselves "why will people be interested to play my mod?" Jow is the mod different or more interesting than any other mod, or the original game the mod is based on?

Playing a Combine soldier is a compelling idea. However the mod authors have failed to follow through on that idea - the gameplay is no different from vanilla Half-Life 2.

The authors had a great opportunity to allow players to become Combine. But where are the Combine-only weapons? The sniper rifle? A deployable manhack? Turrets, rollermines and bouncers? Like I say a great, missed opportunity.

The maps themselves also lack a point. They meander, full of dead ends, pointless rooms and switchbacks. It's often hard to tell which way to go. They lack a concrete sense of advancement. While some of the overall design of the architecture is nice, the maps lack a lot of detail. There are far too many square-shaped rooms with wooden boxes and metal shelves.

As a lot of people have already pointed out, the levels have lighting problems. Not only are they often too dark, but the mappers have not used lighting to effectively dramatise their spaces, or to highlight important objects. The lighting is very bland.

The mod has a half-finished feel to it, but even if it had been finished I'm not sure it would have presented anything particularly new or interesting.