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?
Sorry to hear about discontinuing this promising mod. I had the feeling that you did very well with the source engine and educe it some unique things like the dream sequence after watching that picture and other stuff. I have no idea if valve lost grip. You can read in almost any source mod in the credits something like "and many thanks for the help from xyz valve employer/PR". Hope you can implement your interesting ideas with an other engine. Good luck to you sir and thanks for your entertaining and educating news in the past!
I will miss this mod, so much thought whent into every aspect.
I wish you well on your lively troubles and hope on day it works out for you :)
Valve has near lost it's grip, the only reason people use source are because of the games made on them.
Do you think Valve lost it's grip on the modding community?
WITHOUT ANY DOUBT!!
it is a real shame to see you not finish this project, but as mapper/modeler myself i do understand it completely. it is that i am almost finished with my 5th HL2 ep2 sp-mod otherwise i also would have gone over to newer engines and editors. to stop my own project now would be silly, but believe me, the fun is sometimes hard to find in finishing it. that said, i do thank you for releasing all your assets. i will download them and check it all, and probably i will use some of it. Of Course will you get all the credits for them!
thanks, and hopefully we will see one time a UDK project of you finished!
leon
Well, okay then...*stop tracking*
*sigh* See ya!~ :(
Source is not a rival to UDK. If you think that way you'd be very wrong.
Source is just Valve's own game engine that happens to be available to the public. Valve has no concern of selling the engine (although they do sell it), they just use it and update it as they need. It's not a product that is targeted for all types of games.
UDK on the other hand is an all purpose easy to use game engine. Epic didn't create UE3 for Unreal Tournament 3. Unreal Tournament 3 was a showcase of UE3. On the other hand Source is created specifically for Half Life 2.
So it's only logical to go for UE3 or CE3 at this point. Source is just good for modders. At least for now.
laymans terms Both UDK(Unreal Dev-Kit) and CE3(Cry-Engine 3) are built for the purposes of flexibility, and source will forever be left behind, while its developers lose community support by the day. even if they release a "new" SDK its still too outdated to compete with these V8 engines of the gaming world.
They still have a "grip"
But the problem is that they don't actively support it.
DAMMIT this mod had potential! :( I will always cherish it :(