The Opera mod for Half-Life 2

Over eight years ago I was working on a mod for another engine when a friend of mine (Leon) introduced me to The Opera and its' development team. Prior I had worked on three other mods, but only one ever got completed. When I saw that this mod was aiming at capturing what I loved most about action cinema I jumped at the chance to help out. At that time the Half-Life engine was relatively new and was considered pretty cutting edge. Heh...Half-Life 1 was cutting edge once.

Anyhow...

Time (A lot of time actually) passed and we eventually released something playable to the public. Other mod teams that were developing their own take on action movies took a swing in the direction of ourvision and away from the direction they had started with. They completed their vision sooner than we did. They had a larger (some claimed more dedicated) team AND the public to help complete their mod. We had us. When they completed their vision of our shared love of Hong Kong action it drew unfair comparisions and strife down on us. What we was different from their take on the genre. It was our take. It wasnt all we wanted it to be and it wasnt all we dreamed it could be, but we had released something. It was premature (I still have no idea why we released so much sooner than we had planned. I look back and wish we had just waited the two extra months we had originally planned to. We had SOME reason, but I cant for the life of me remember what that was!), but it was a hell of a lot of fun for the people that appreciated what tried to do.

That was Half-Life 1 "The Opera"

We wanted to release an update to that making it all it could be. A singleplayer was planned and we started working towards that. This is when we started to see newer engines coming down the pipe. We started to see all the shortcomings of Half-Life and all the new sexiness of other engines. We decided with great reluctance to move to a new platform. We decided to move over to the Unreal Tournament 2003 before that game had even come out. We learned what we could and made the painful leap to that engine. Breaking our bonds and what have you. We did all the research we could and started working even before that game came out. Problems came right away. Not because UT2003 is a terrible game. it just wasnt made to be all that friendly to singleplayer games with multiplayer aspects. It really threw us around and beat us up, but it did show us what it was like to really "develop" as it were. It was a new famngled eninge and came with a lot of complications, but we learned a lot. Still, it nearly tore our vision appart. We rethought our plans and redesigned the game to be multiplayer only. We abandoned our plans of a singleplayer to save our vision. I attribute this to the great leadership of David Flor and Tom Dunne. If they hadnt done that The Opera would have died right there.

So we changed our vision.

We got working on multiplayer only "The Opera", but it was still all really hard. We had very few team members and few people coming in to fill the gaps. It was a hard time, but we trudged on. Developing for UT2003 was really different from Half-Life. It was so much "more" and it was all so "different" that it really messed with us. Still we trudged onwardss. We always trudged on. Soon we were facing some difficulties. The same mod team that we had to "compete" with earlier switched to the same engine, we were having trouble getting any work done because of personal trials (ranging from school woes to deaths of loved ones to in fighting in the team and even physical problems...) and devloping so much more content for the new technology was taking its' toll on us. It was an all round hard. Period. The Opera almost died right there. Right after nearly perishing due to an old engine it was almost dead because of its' new engine! It was a really trying time.

Then Half-Life2 got leaked.

We all saw the promise of Half-Life2. We knew it offered a returned to some familiarity and solved the problems that were inherent in sticking with its' predacessor. All new hotness, much less of a learning curve. Still it was a departure from "the plan" and it was hard to move. It took a lot of playing and sex screenshots to convince us. We were affraid to be "wrong" about our switch to UT2003 and could have cost us...but we were a "What the hell..." kind of team. Lots of hissy fits later and we were moving to Half-Life2. We had lots of stuff made for UT2003, but it was really hard and not as saticfying as we had hoped.

I left the team right about here. It wasnt the engine switch. It was how I felt about some of the team. Most of the team was great. I had just had enough of some people and felt betrayed by others. No biggy. That's life. I was the one that made the mistake of trusting people I shouldnt and NOT trusting others that I should have. It wasnt their fault, so dont think anything of my leaving. It also had to do with my frustration at the pace that game content was getting made.

Anyhow...

A few moons have passed since that time. I have moved on in life. Things are harder now than they were even then and boy were they hard then. Now I see how professional teams develop and understand that what I was expecting from those poor guys was just too damned much. They make professional content, but I wanted it at a professional pace. That isnt something that non-professional developers can do AND have any sort of a personal life. (unless they are Okinawan workaholic gits...like I was)

That is why it is important to see what these guys can do if we just give them time.

I KNOW that they can make something really good if we let them. I have seen the twinkle of it from behind the scenes. Sure, some mod teams would do it faster, but most couldnt dream of doing it better than what I KNOW The Redeemed Assassins development team can make.

Why am I posting this?

Well that comment about The Opera looking like a wannabe mod got me thinking. The Opera has been around longer than most of the people reading this have had pubes. If it was a wannabe mod...it would have died a long time ago. There is something golden inside the premise of The Opera, if only time enough exists for it to get made. That post by Daemon_wicked about how he had the opinion of this being a "wannabe mod" was totally uncalled for. WHEN this mod gets done I fully suspect it will get a 9 out of 10 or higher. It is just a matter of time. I look forward to that time. I love it when wrong people are proven so. I just hope that day comes sooner rather than later. I really want to play this before I am too old to care about playing videogames anymore.

Take good care. We need each other.

whats that sound? ohh yeah its the sound of WANNABE MOD!!!!

Seems like the homepage is down :( Damn.Way too sad

Mookarcade.tk

List of mirrors for HL1 version. lol...but the community comes and goes. You might find a couple servers here and there.

i think there are downloads for half life 1

Looks like the only really stylish mod out there...keep it stylish with cool stuff like cool music

Some damn fine media you got there.Good luck.Looks more than sweet :)

Seems sweet, I would give it a try.

Badass guys. Keep up the great work! See its coming along smoothly. Would not expect less from you's.

Is this mod dead?