Why?
As you can see, Yes, Protocol Blue is ceasing development and I'll explain the reasons why I decided to go this route. Firstly the issue of maps and by extension lack of any real team, It's no secret that I've been desperate to have a proper team on this project and with good reason. A mod isn't really easy to pull off alone because it requires a few different skills, learning and working on all of those skills is as you can guess not easy or really feasible, hence why people shoot for having a team because it usually yields better results if you have people who specialize in a skill doing it instead of you, it also just really improves the workflow and makes things seem more doable. I had only one other person join as a team member (not counting people who have contributed to the mod) and to put it bluntly, they essentially just ruined existing code by the previous person I had help me and overall made a bunch of major changes without my approval then ghosted me afterwards and me being not experienced with coding outside of some basic weapons, couldn't fix these changes. I didn't have any of the people who could help to turn to because they were busy with their own projects and such, so I was essentially at a stump if I wasn't already. This really leads into the mapping situation because never in the nearly 3 years of this project's life has a map ever been completed. Level design was the bane of working on this project for me, I would constantly trash and redo maps I was never satisfied with how a map was in terms of gameplay or visually. I've had people compliment my maps on the basis of screenshots but the thing of it is that's just the look of the map, really the maps didn't play very well so obviously I wasn't proud of them so in an attempt to fix it all I would just trash it and restart but to no avail. It was a miserable feeling and process that took the idea that I could complete the project out of me. Really the only time I was happy with any work were models and sounds because I had fun doing them and it just went more naturally for me even if they weren't the best results. There was a point recently where I considered paying people who I knew would take payment to work on the mod but with how much people tend to ask for it just wouldn't happen with where I am in life right now. Additionally I've grown distant from the half life community because I've admittedly started to not like being apart of it lately there's a lot to that but the point is it added onto my lack of drive to finish this project. This final map for chapter 3 pictured below I worked on before I dropped the project was probably the most complete and only one I felt a bit proud of but ultimately I got stuck on what to do then I got unsatisfied with it and trashed it like the other maps which made me come to the conclusion that the project was just not happening
Releasing Mod Contents
I do not plan to release any of the stuff I worked on personally, as for the work by people who have contributed that will be up to them obviously. I'm not really proud with how a lot of what I did on the mod turned out so I don't want to release any of it, believe me you're not missing much in terms of what I did
Conclusion
I apologize to anybody who was looking forward to the project but the truth is with how things were going it would've never come together and if it did it wouldn't be very good. I really would've loved to have finished the mod because it's something I've worked on almost 3 years and envisioned a couple years earlier but I needed to do myself the favor of pulling the plug because the fear of making something not good was looming over me along side the awful experience with trying to do things myself without help
The screenshots and concept arts were really promising, sad to hear this mod will remain unfinished
That really sucks man. I hope you will reconsider this decision later, maybe you just need a pause. Well at least you came and said it, and not like other mods just stopping posting updates and replies.
I think you should still release what you've got. It might help future mappers to see how certain things work or provide inspiration to them.
Judging by the screenshots it didn't look that bad actually. On the Contrary it looked fairly promising and well made.
And as Aynekko pointed out. Perhaps all you need is a break for the time being. Dude I'm sitting on one of my mods since 2008. There are like 24 maps or so basically finished but the whole project on itself would end with a cliffhangar as it stands now so I too won't release it 'cause I wont release unfinished stuff but I wont abandon it either. The time will come when I will return to it.
I don't know about that first point, the screenshots only look good they didn't actually play good like I said. Most of those rooms were made for title screen backgrounds and stayed only rooms, you have no clue how underdeveloped these maps were believe me
That's totally okay. I wish you the best in your future endeavours.
Well you could always contribute them to an active mod developer. Back in the days I received some maps of defunct mods and to honor the hard work these brave devs invested in their creations and also to safe myself some time I implemented them partially in Military Duty. Sometimes just parts of their original maps sometimes the whole map. I enhanced them naturally massively but the credits were given and the original map or room structures remained - the authors were proud that their hard work wasn't in vain and at least some of their maps saw the daylight.
This building interior for instance was of the dead mod yellow shift:
Media.moddb.com
Moddb.com
Could be an interesting alternative to you idk.
It's understandable. I would say press on if the only issue was the lack of new code, a well designed mappack would still be an enjoyable time, but three years without a single completed map must be discouraging.
I get not releasing what you have too. I have tons of unreleased maps that combining them would make two or three decent length mods, but I still hold onto them because they're not really finished and I wouldn't want to put an incomplete map on the net. Go check out my profile images to see some of them, just one glance and you can notice tons of issues with every single one, it's natural.
All that being said, you should lose the perfectionist mentality man, I've been there and let me tell you, no matter what you do you'll find imperfections once you return to even the maps you were most proud of. Don't constantly trash the work, keep what you have and do better on the next one, otherwise nothing will get done. There are tons of mods regarded as classics today, do you think every single map of them are perfect?
Looking at the screenshots, I like what I see, nice old-school BM mapping style. Can't say anything about the gameplay you call bad obviously, but what I can say is that it can't possibly be worse than some of the junk we've seen on this site over the years.
Do what you want with it.
PsyWarVeteran Oh in fact it was. I thought it was the mod creator that wrote your message. Message rescinded. :D Sorry.
Aww this looked so good! :<
R.I.P
Nonetheless, I wish you good luck in your future endeavours.
Damn shame, development sounded like a disaster but regardless it still showed progress!
Best of luck in your future endeavors!
Why not release the damn **** so someone else can finish it?
because
1. Nobody's going to finish it, the mod is too obscure and the amount of times someone has finished someone else's mod is in the single digits
2. I really don't trust anyone else to finish the project because it's probably going to be some kid doing it or they will take it in a questionable direction if it wasn't already going in one
3. Again I don't want to release my assets I'm not proud of how they turned out and I don't really want to see people use my assets in the state they are in
Another promising mod left in the dust