H appy new year everyone here at ModDB, and to everyone who's been tracking this mod. First off, I want to say thanks for the feedback received so far on the 2nd demo. Although I know it's nothing like a real demo it does demonstrate a few things. I'm not making this mod the way most developers do. First of all, it's because i'm not trying to be commercial about this project; It's a Valve inspired mod. The story is inside HL2's universe so I could never go commercial with this, which isn't my goal. The goal I'm striving for with this project mainly is to learn as much as I can about source, and if my approach to this works at all. One of the reasons I'm also doing this is because it is fun to work on a project like this. I'm a huge fan of singleplayer games and I always wanted to do something like this.I have to say that most of the work is done by only a few. Right now mainly my voice actor Robert, Visorak: who's helping me with the story, Dec and Mapster who give me advice, and Dr. Darko who helped me with the X-mas presents and some of the civil skins. I myself mainly work on the maps, textures, story and all the choreography and scripts. It's alot of work to implement everything but it's worth the time spent on it. I wish I could show more about the mod itself, but other then screenshots and releasing what I have people have no idea what to expect, and I'd like to keep it like that as much as possible. I promise that I will do my best to deliver something nice to play and experience. I'm not making the next big thing, but I am trying to please HL2 fans with my take on the half-life universe.
T here's still a long way to go until we're there. Looking back on all the games i have played through the years, it's easy to notice the changes. I'm not sure what to make of modern games sometimes, but the second I popped in Megaman on my old gameboy and NES it's just a certain feeling you don't get with most games anymore. On a side note, I think making megaman 9 was an awesome thing that Capcom did. And that's where I struggle with my mod. I have such an urge to plunge players into maps not knowing what to do; not because I am a sadist; but because I grew up playing games you have hardly any idea of what to do. Right now I just solved one of the major bugs in the first map of the 2nd demo; addressing the fact people don't know what to do.
W hich brings me to the next topic, the fact my small mod got mentioned in a podcast over at Podcast 17. I'm pretty happy with how it was received and the complaints that were made, to me, felt decent and valid. Basically what they mentioned was the fact that I made a demo which really wasn't one. I feel I probably missed the boat on that one and could've called it a "1187 X-mas gift" instead of naming it "Demo 2". The other thing they talked about was why release this? Why make a map especially for Christmas, and which has nothing to do with the mod itself. Well it was as what they said at the end, is that I am still learning alot, also about optimising maps. So instead of having all the campaign maps starting out as dev maps, I chose to create a few themed maps that have sceneries I want to use in the mod itself. For instance, the X-mas map itself was my first outside open area and applying a decent terrain. I also used assault entities for the first time making John alot more agressive. As for the infiltration map, that was also a DEV map once, but due to the fact I had to learn to optimise maps (and I'm still learning that), it means I have to finish them as a whole completed map. The final reason I released all this is because it was a fun thing for me to do, I love to give people stuff for no reason. It didn't slow down development; it only enhanced the quality of the earlier maps, and especially the ones still to come, I've learned alot more about choreography doing John's scenes in the x-mas map so there ya have it. Oh and I thought it'd be a shame not to share the infiltration map, 3 maps in a demo just felt better ....
Here's a clip from podcast 17 # Transmission Code: 10277 talking about the mod.
Podcast 17 source: Podcast17.com
I also want to address the fact that I am still looking for people to help me out. Modellers, Skin/Texture Artists, Coders and Animators are welcome to apply, that goes for freelancers too. The "work" eviroment is not really stressful, I don't deal much with deadlines, I only expect you will give it as much as you can / want to but always aim to make something with the needed attention put into it. That's my own philosophy anyway.
Peace,
Joure
Great speech, cheers to a new year of expeience and modding!
the second dude is like Simon from American Idol. Including the accent.