Post news Report RSS Hard-Drive Failure, Project Future

An update. Trying to keep a positive attitude, probably.

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Hi. This is GEλR°. In 2021, the drive that housed a lot of development-files for this project died and I'm currently in dire financial circumstances so I'm unable to pay for data recovery services. I am therefore unable to continue working on this project until I am able to pay for that. Please do not comment and tell me that I should've kept better backups or that I should've stored this information on a server. I know that. I think there's maybe a disconnect between the development circumstances that people imagine and the reality of the situation. My personal safety and future life are in serious jeopardy right now. They have been since I started working on this mod in late 2018, however recent events have worsened the situation to such a degree I cannot possibly forsee being able to pay for recovery services at any point in the near future.
MITTλGΞISΞN° is and always was a one-man production. I received programming assistance from a talented Czech programmed named Saruna. She helped me achieve the grindhouse film-distortion and light pollution effects that I wanted. All modelling, mapping, textures, scripting, sounds, compiling, and organizing was something I had to try and figure out on my own. I don't lay this out in an attempt to garner sympathy, but it's worth noting that this is/was a project created by a single person who wanted to goof around with the Source Engine after class and it snowballed into a multi-hour-long full-feature total-conversion. Part of the reason development seemed to be crawling along at this impossibly slow pace was because there were very few shortcuts taken in development. If I wanted something done, even if I didn't know how to do it, I would have to teach myself how to do it. I never had any money to pay anybody to do it for me.
Recently, I took the time to load my archived build of the mod onto my fixed PC and realized that multiple poor development decisions had left the build reliant on shader/render files that were only stored locally and were among the ones lost alongside the map sources and programming alterations made to Source. This means it won't run without files I don't have anymore. Because of this, my plans for releasing what I already had finished are kind-of null, because it's not functional in the slightest on other machines despite my beliefs to the contrary. I do plan on releasing all of the assets I created for the mod over the three years I spent working on it if it becomes clear that I really am just up the creek and am never going to have money for anything ever again, but I'm really not at that point in my life yet.
Really, of all the projects and stories I've worked on, I think MITTλGΞISΞN° is my favorite, and the passion to continue working on it is still there. The story and the idea came from a really bizarre time in my life and I never got sick of working in the setting. It's one of the ideas I can actually say I'm proud of, even if it's stalled to a stop right now.
I really appreciate all of you guys, and I think one of my biggest benefits working on this project is how the Source Engine community has this fanatical dedication to problem-solving that serves as a mark of true enthusiasm. I'd like to keep an optimistic attitude about getting my files back and keeping this project moving, even if there's a non-zero chance that's never going to happen.
I'll hang out with pretty much anybody and talk to them about anything, so if you want to talk to me about this project or anything else, you can usually get me at:

thevaultkid@gmail.com
Steam.
Instagram.

I'll try to update you guys at some point. I saw people saying this mod was dead so I wanted to address that. Thank you for reading all of this.

See you later.

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FlippedOutKyrii
FlippedOutKyrii

Sounds like you are in a very rough spot! The mod come's secondary right now, you need to focus on your life right now. Take all the time you need D:

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ReezeTheVampire
ReezeTheVampire

Harddrive failure can be devastating. I lost all of my college projects why mine died shortly after graduation. All I have to show for them are the few images I uploaded online. I'm really sorry to hear this happened to you, we can all be patient waiting for such a promising project to get back on the rails.

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