Prospekt Created 8 years ago2016-01-17 04:22:31 UTC by satchmo

Has anyone played or seen this?

Prospekt

I just read about this tonight. I plan to support this developer and pre-order it today.

Looks a bit crap, tbh.

It's average-at-best mapping and looks worse than HL2 which came out in 2004. Come ahhhn. Demanding money for that is nonsense. It looks like myfirstmap.bsp.

Yeah, this looks average at best. I would have maybe checked it out if it were a free mod, but I won't be paying for it when there are better, total conversions out there that are free.

I thought it looks decent--enough for me to get it.

Or perhaps I am just desperate for anything in the Half-Life universe that I am willing to lower my standard.

I'm not wasting hard drive space on another mediocre HL2 mod.
Additionally, I'm not spending $10 on a mediocre HL2 mod.

Have to agree with Archie, even from trailer it looks really armature. I would ratter spend my time on on other mods, let alone pay any money for this.
It is just unfair that people who put a lot of work in total conversions, will never get that much fame and money than this...

Remember when I was a little kid who thought I could make shitty little mods and sell them on Steam?

Well now that's actually happening.

Title made me go to it's Steam community hub. Credit to the dev for admitting the price on it is there because of the huge time commitment invested in the mod, unlike everyone else these days trying to pull a molyneux.
That being said, the only thing i found interesting was the large hall in the first few seconds of the intro video. I think everything else needs more work and polish: flat floors, walls, ceiling... Imho, should take it back to alpha and put up a V2 when it's properly done.

As opposed to all the free mods which, what, don't have a huge time commitment invested?

A mod would need to be ground breaking for me to consider paying for it. Black Mesa was at least a total conversion, not to mention a remake of my favourite game of all time...

Prospekt raises serious issues with me. Sure, I can see that a lot of work has been done on some new particle system, and that's fine. But the models appear to be the same as retail, the level design looks bland and even the general location itself... I mean Nova Prospekt? Really? It was probably my least favourite location in HL2, which is my second least favourite game in the HL series.

It would be like charging for a HL1 mod set purely in Xen...

The guy has every right to charge for his mod. But everybody else has the same right to not buy it. People have tried to monetise stuff like fan-fiction before, few have succeeded but people should be welcome to give it a try.

There's no need for the rest of us, as content creators, to feel threatened or discouraged by this. Free mods aren't going to go away just because a few folks want to charge for their content. Just look at how the open source community is still going strong, even though the "app store" market turned some people into greedy bastards.

I'm not at all against monetizing one's creation, whether it's quality work or not. I can name a few mods I'd've been willing to pay for depending on the price.

That said, this just doesn't even come close to meeting any requirements, especially priced the same as HL2 itself.

I have one doubt, unless the Pak files and all its models, textures, sounds, etc. were created by this guy... should he pay a part of the money received for using other´s stuff? :/ Of course valve has given permission to sell the MOD, but I´m quite curious about how this things are done because of (c) matters.

I wonder how soon steam will greenlight GoldSource mods. Lol.

@abbadon: It looks like it's mostly HL2 content, not much custom stuff so it's probably okay. The copyright stuff was a big problem when Valve and Bethesda tried (and failed) to enable paid mods for Skyrim last year. It's something that has to be treated very carefully.

BEST IDEA EVER: Lets make a mod that would get steam greenlight and ask money for it. Lets use profit to pay for TWHL domain till forever.

Wow, what's with the overwhelmingly negative feedback on that Before mod? I played it a few months ago and thought it was a decent little experience. No better or worse than the vast majority of of short Half-Life mods at any rate.

Is it just Greenlight shenanigans?

@KB90: I know you're joking, but the domain and hosting only costs me 10 bucks a month. There's no need to gather funding for it. Compo prizes are always welcome, though...

I wasn't joking. We could try to make a mod that would sell. I would join.

You're free to organise your own mod team but please don't associate TWHL with anything commercial.

Wow, what's with the overwhelmingly negative feedback on that Before mod? I played it a few months ago and thought it was a decent little experience. No better or worse than the vast majority of of short Half-Life mods at any rate.

Is it just Greenlight shenanigans?

I'm curious about that myself. A lot of the feedback appears to relate to short play time, no story beyond the blurb in Steam and a bad ending. I've not actually tried it, but... I think I HAVE to now.

In other news:

Well it seems like everyone's thoughts on this unreleased mod were summed up one post in, and there isn't a whole lot elseto talk about.

Also I think the negativity on HL: Before stems from the fact that it's on Steam, so the quality is expected to be higher quality (this was before anything that went through Greenlight ended up on Steam IIRC) but it's a super mediocre HL1 mod.

I've actually played Before, and it had some weird performance issues due to it being all one map, which was kinda a bad idea imho. It also generally just had inconsistent quality and wasn't very good in terms of gameplay either.

the negativity on HL: Before stems from the fact that it's on Steam

yeas, if you read all the steam reviews and moddb reviews put it together and you see the issue is that theres lots of haters for it goiong to steam when it obviously isnt the best mod you ever played. Most memorable boss fight though. But its like 2 maps long and you all know there are better mods around. As if nobody likes it if a mod goes on steam while 100 others dont

Hard to judge this mod just yet... I think if Valve authorized it and even gave the license it has to be somewhat special. After all that guy is 1 guy - all alone. He did one hell of work. Everyone not appreciating that doesn't know much about the work that was involved in this. Still 'The Core' from "Archie & Urby" is also still free. So not sure why that other mod goes for 10 bucks. Again all so hard to judge as long as his mod hasn't been released yet..

As for the mapping you're right it doesn't look that spectacular.. How ever the trailer shows only a small portion of it.. The audio certainly sounds stunning then again I'm always exited when I hear the voice line "goose3 is done goose3 is done." Opfor was one of my favorite episodes of Hl1.

In any case I might get it but first I will check out some lets play to see if it's worthwhile or not.

I know you're joking, but the domain and hosting only costs me 10 bucks a month. There's no need to gather funding for it.

Anyway, money will make things going better.

I think that 1-person Modders deserve more respect, and support of course, but I see no sense of making a Mod hoping to be paid for it, I think it kills the spirit of the Mod-Making, a Mod, unless if we are talking about Gunman Chronicles ,should be totally free.

I was working the last years on my Mod(I´ve started on 2004, finished the v1.0 on 2007 and then I´ve started to re-do the Mod on June 2015), and I haven´t ever thought about being paid, I´ll feel, It´s my oppinion, a bit absurd pretending such thing...

@23-down: I don't think Valve have 'approved' it in the way you might be thinking. Greenlight is a community voting system, once something gets enough votes it is approved. You should consider Steam as a distribution platform to be separate from Valve as a games company.

@abbadon: I don't like monetising websites. I don't run ads, I don't ask for donations, and I don't want to associate TWHL with any commercial venture. I know everyone has the best of intentions but it's just my personal view. Compo prizes are slightly different because they go back to the community members.

abbadon: I don't like monetising websites. I don't run ads, I don't ask for donations, and I don't want to associate TWHL with any commercial venture.

Oh, I'm sorry Penguinboy , I didn't want to offend you... I've once tried to build a web site and maintenance was three or four times the prize you've said, so I've said that "money helps", anyway I feel very comfortable at TWHL, even if you're a newbie you're treated like an equal ^_^ probably because of nobody feels like loosing money helping people that starts a life of game developer

I don't think Valve have 'approved' it in the way you might be thinking. You should consider Steam as a distribution platform to be separate from Valve as a games company.

You do, however, have to go through Valve in regards to licensing Source for commercial sale, and additionally sort out IP licensing (considering it's based on the HL2 universe). One would imagine that would be handled separately from simply being Greenlit, because they're allowed to decide what can or cannot be sold using their IP.

Well is it a mod or a standalone game?
If it's a Mod, i don't see a problem with it, so long as you already own the base game.

It is odd if Valve lets the Prospekt team keep most of the income... "Yeah just bundle all the materials and models and code that we spent years developing, go ahead and sell it"

To be fair, that content is over 10 years old. I hardly think Valve cares about HL2 anymore.

The game is still for sale on steam. Valve is still making a profit on it regardless of the age.
Regardless, I'll have to look into the mod more. If there's at least an hour of gameplay, and there are some positive reviews, it might be worth $10.

IMHO, 99% of mods and community content should be free - a hobby meant to show off your skills or present an idea / storyline without the need to develop an entire game from scratch. It seems like Prospekt is a map pack with some new materials and models sprinkled in.

IMHO, 99% of mods and community content should be free

You must of not read the dev QnA. He talks about why this is a paid mod.
If we don't pay him for the mod, he'll actually have to get a job. Heaven forbid!
That being said, i'm done with this thread. It isn't worth anymore of my time.

If we don't pay him for the mod, he'll actually have to get a job. Heaven forbid!

lol

Making a mappack to avoid getting a job sounds like something I'd have thought when I was in middle school, not after I'd gotten my game design degree, but here he is. Again, not against monetizing work, but that's just a bad life plan.

Also the link in the OP says he physically sent his mod directly to Valve and expected them to shit their pants at how talented he was. Now that story is the good to come out of this project. I would love to hear about his thought process there.

At least he heard back. I don't even know if Gaben GOT the book i sent him

It specifically says he didn't hear back.

oops

BTW, did you play the Mod?, it worths the money?, or this is like the "american dream" where a enthusiastic guy decides to put all one's eggs in a basket and hope his dreams will come true just because he thinks he worths it?, well I like movies like this

Something in this history, as I read more about it, looks a bit strange.
Don't think I'm not with the guy but I saw other HL2 mods that look even better that aren't treated like this, even the new features aren't from other world, and also the optimal requirements are a bit high (don' t botherism of optimisation? ).

I highly doubt this is a game licensed on the Source engine. An engine license is multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, and as far as I know, Valve never set up a UDK-style license for Source. No amateur developer could afford an engine license. This is almost certainly based on the SDK, which doesn't require you to license the engine. The Source SDK Base is available on Steam for free, so you might not even need HL2 to play it.

I think people may be looking too deep into the fact that Valve "approved" this. I think they simply do not care if it's HL fanfiction or not. It's a mod, it's on Steam, Steam allows people to sell mods. Anything that gets enough votes on Greenlight gets on Steam. That's all there is to it.

Oh, if your point is that Valve probably doesn't really care what it is, then yeah, I'm totally on the same page.

I just think it's obvious they're knowingly licensing their IP and engine for sale because it's being sold. There's a clear difference between slapping a mod up for free and slapping a mod up commercially. Obviously there's no pricing information on Source licensing publicly available (barring the $25k Havok fee) because all licensees are most certainly under NDA (as I'm trying to dance around mine), but clearly it's something an amateur could do. Look at Dear Esther, Stanley Parable, INFRA, Black Mesa, Insurgency... ALl were amateurs now selling, and they're all on versions of the engine not publicly available (meaning everyone's SDK base isn't sufficient).

I guess there's an argument that Prospekt's not (AFAIK) on a fancy build of Source, so they're perhaps allowing him to charge specifically to distribute only his custom content (which is ludicrous IMO and probably a legal headache), or perhaps Valve for some reason doesn't care if their HL IP is used commercially which, neither of which do I really have an answer for, but that's as much speculation as everything else is.

The whole thing's a bit Devil's Advocate, though. I don't expect Valve cares that it's probably mediocre, or thinks of it at all, really. Just think they know what's being sold commercially. Not that it matters, probably never going to touch this.

Good point, there might be a deal that's been made, or maybe Valve is just happy to take the 30% cut from sales. Last I heard it was a 6-figure number to license Source, but that was a few years ago and that's probably not valid today with stuff like Unity and UE3 having much more indie-friendly licenses - Valve would likely change their policies to match.

@Penguinboy : Any Source commercial game requires the developer to buy a Havok (physics engine) license which is around $25k, see here : http://steamcommunity.com/app/399120/discussions/0/458606248622335645/?tscn=1452883827#c458606248625144477

Also : http://steamcommunity.com/app/399120/discussions/0/458606248624300973/#c458606248629351776

By looking at the screenshots/videos, I agree that the graphics quality is very HL2-esque, I'm a little bit disappointed that some Opposing Force's elements aren't making their return (for example : the HL2 Beta Combine Sniper that could replace Opposing Force's M40A1).

I've pre-ordered the game anyways, if anyone is interested, I'll make a video or post series of screenshots of the game when it will be released.

That's pretty steep, especially for an amateur developer. No wonder there's not many commercial Source games out there. It's also probably one of the reasons why Valve made their own physics engine for Source 2 instead of using Havok. A percentage-based licensing model like Unity or UDK is more attractive to indie developers these days.