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Welcome to An Open Window.
I. Introduction
An Open Window is an experimental MOD for Half-Life 2, Episode 2.
In this project I will attempt to bring the concept of different realities to life in a
realistic scenario. Instead of being another Shooter, AnOpWi centers around the
role of the player and his/her experience, emotion and memories. By interacting with
the world the player will define his own reality within the story.
II. Open Development Cycle
For this project I chose an open development cycle, which means I will update very
frequently and share every step I take in the process of creating this game. Next to
the regular media updates, I will also share my thoughts on the different areas of
game design in the form of articles. In every article I will also ask for your opinion
with the Question of the Day. This MOD also functions as a knowledge base
for new and experienced designers.
III. Release predictions
At this point I can't predict when AnOpWi will be done. The MOD is being developed
by myself only, thus the progress depends on the amount of time I can invest in it.
Because of the open developement cycle, I greatly appreciate any input I recieve from the community. Your ideas on game design, your critism on the content and your general interest contribe to the development and I personally enjoy reading them.
Thanks for reading!
Articles
An Open Window: Discontinued
This update contains bad and good news. To get it over with, I'll start with the bad news to get it out of the way. I'm not going to finish this project and will be focussing on other things in life.
All Watchers who read the last update already knew about the situation of this project and were informated about the trouble I've been having to pick up the project again. Real life has become more demanding and a full conversion is just too much work to handle on my own right now. Secondly, developing in Source has been tricky at the least. Documentation is poor, updates are rare and there is no official support. Recently I downloaded UDK, the development tools for the Unreal engine, and was baffled by the quality of the tools and the amount of documentation available. UDK also has monthly official updates. All things I've been struggling with in Source are far more easy to do in UDK, which raised the question: why continue in Source?
Therefore I'm removing the Source SDK from my computer and fully move on to UDK. I've seen many mod teams and developers do the same and I'd like to be up front when it comes to next-gen games. I've always been a great fan of Valve, but they've really let the modding community down with Source in the last few years. After a promising start, when they promoted good mods on Steam, now these halls seem silent. If Valve is planning a mod revival for Episode 3, they might have already missed that ship.
The good news is that I will release all content I've made over the development cycle to the public! In the Downloads section I've uploaded the AnOpWi Content Pack, which includes 95 textures, 48 models and 7 sounds for the Source modding community. Please feel free to use them in your maps. I hope to someday see them used in a good Source mod.
Lastly, I want to thank all the 223 Watchers on ModDB for supporting the project and giving me their input on design issues. Also big thanks to Podcast 17 for featuring my mod in their online shows. To stay in style, I want to present you the last Question of the Day. Thanks everyone!
Question of the Day:
Do you think Valve lost it's grip on the modding community?
An Open Window: Status Update
News 11 commentsPersonally I hate it when projects just vanish off the face of the earth without any trace. It seems only fair to the over 200 people following this MOD...
An Open Window: PLD +76
News 8 commentsIt's been a busy but interesting week. In today's update, I'd like to share some technical aspects of MOD making, from a field which got me into this...
An Open Window: PLD +66
News 14 commentsText is good, pictures are better but video is the best and that's why today's article features new footage of one of the gameplay aspect of AnOpWi. The...
An Open Window: PLD +57
News 10 commentsIn today's update I'd like to show you more media, a short return to last weeks topic and give you my views on "artsy MODs".
Files
AnOpWi Content Pack
Other 3 commentsThis package contains content from my discontinued Source project An Open Window. All content was made by me, so if you decide to use any of it, please...
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Id have to agree on the point of Source SDK not being officially supported, but strongly disagree on it not being documented. There is a wealth of information on the Source SDK, though there isnt a single place you can go to find it all. Even the Valve Developer Community has omitted a lot of important stuff, though you can find it elsewhere. There are several sites that have lots of tutorials and downloadable examples of many different things. I enjoy using the engine. Even so, I may be moving to the Crysis 2 SDK if it is what I saw in a video a couuple years ago. However, I will be finishing what I started on Source before doing so.
So..it died?:( Well good luck on future plans then Hexus. Hopefully you will make a mod/game of something someday.
thx for content pack, good work :D
Looks interesting. I'm tracking this.
Month of silence... hoping this isn't a bad sign.
Yeah, thought about that too. But I think that he's a bit exhausted due to writing news on a daily basis back then.
its definitively not a waste to have dynamic environments i love screwing around in my little settling place when i have a quiet period
Tracking. I had/have an idea similar to this but never got past concept. Good luck.
looking good, and very interesting! good luck, tracking! :)
This isn't gonna be one of the boring, ******, trying-way-too-*******-hard-to-be-cool-and-artsy style mods, is it? 'Cause it looks kind of interesting.
You aren't going to be one of those boring, ******, I-just-want-to-play-call-of-duty-clones-forever style players, are you? Because your SHODAN avatar says otherwise...maybe it's purposefully misleading so people take you seriously at first.
Well, if you're interested, take your time to read through the articles and decide for yourself.
I always found the term "artsy" pretty redicilous and undefining. I might just dedicate an article to that topic soon :)
Well said. Looks quite intriguing. I'm keeping an eye on this project too.All the best !