I don't think this is justifying, developers when answering on BM forum seems honest and factual. That's my opinion, of course there is a possibility that it was just for get out from the situation.
I played a few times that lines from BM and HL1 (worse to judge because of radio distortion) and I prefer this one (again - personal preferences). Eventually intonation of "science team" and "responsible" is middling.
But I'm not an English native speaker.
Anyway, I think that trial of female computer voice released some time earlier is ok, so voice acting as an entirety might be good.

Not correcting him so much as it's my not-so-subtle way of saying AMERR'-KUH F*** YEAH

Still want to play the game for the same reason I've always wanted to: to play through Half-Life 1 revamped with Source-worthy assets and map style.

You could wait another decade or so for Source 2: Black Mesa

About the voice acting. I too don't think that Raminator was making up excuses and tried to justified a wrong choice. He said what they planned and meant for the specific va to sound like, and here's why he is sincere....

Last year there was a steamcast special, which you can still find linked in a news post in their official forums, where the voice actors (or some of the main ones) were interviewed. The steamcast lasted for more than one hour and they demonstrated live some of the voices they were performing for the mod. They sounded like really talented people for the job, and especially for what is a free fan made mod.

So, for anyone interested in not judging the va from a specific instance, you can listen to that steamcast and have a more informed opinion anyway.

What are you talking about? I wasn't saying it was accidental, I'm saying their choice was terrible and the explanation for why they made that choice was worse.

Much ado about nothing.

And I wasn't replying to you in particular. It's not about you or what you meant.

Who has entitled to you the right to say how others can criticize or not some game project? If you say that anyone, criticizing or indulging a game, is wrong, by your own opinion, so only your opinion is acceptable? Is it? You are claiming yourself as the judge of other people´s opinions on what they think about a game (piece of art) ?

All, and i mean ALL other games and mods are subject to criticism and rating, so why this, only this one, must be censured by fanatics?

I don´t think you are one of the developers, so how can you pretend to speak for them about who is acceptable or not to rate the goods and bads in Black Mesa?

In fact, one of the developers of the Black Mesa mod just said that they have worked on their game based on the observations of the community, so that, obviously, you are not them to say who can and who can´t make criticism about their game.

90% or more of the gamers in the world don´t know how to make a game and yet they have the right to like or not of what a game offers or if they like the features and visuals of a game.
There is no law or rule saying that those who don´t make games can´t talk about the qualities of a game since they are just the ones that will play the game, or not.
All games and mods in the world are criticized, so why would this mod, and only it, not to be subject to criticism and rating? Because of the fanatics?

The Black Mesa fanatics are used to insult and attack people that make any "unacceptable" question in their foruns? And that is why those fanatics act this way, as the judges of other people opinions.
Is this why you are telling us, if we don´t comply with your opinion, to GTFO? Is It?
Are you bringing the manners of the Black Mesa fanatics over here, is that?

No and No, telling people to GTFO, as you did, is what the people in Black Mesa foruns have being doing for years.
And that, GTFO, is one of the lightest "compliments" that one would receive there for saying anything that MIGHT be countrary to what the Black Mesa fanatics accepts as opinions.
They are used to insult and attack people that disagrees about their insulting behavior and the game.
So I am not surprized to see someone coming here and telling people, here, to "GTFO", since they are used to do this everyday, there.

Every game in the world is rated and is criticized for the good or bad, but, for some strange reason, Black Mesa fanatics want the world to comply with their opinions and to accept insults as a natural right they "have" over us.

An email exchange between someone on Valvetime.net and a member of the mod team got posted on /v/ yesterday of all places. Full thing.

Long story short the people making this mod are more than likely jackasses.

@André Luis:
Dude, I feel sorry that I've expressed myself way I did.So last correction:
1. Text with gtfo should sound more like "according to rule - if you don't like it - get out". Still it won't express the original that well (original sounds kinda funny). So I should leave it in first place. I apologized for that earlier.
2. The point of my statement was that it's unfair to authors to judge something that was somehow "stolen" from them. I know I reacted on impulse and did it, well, silly, I reacted unfair against some of you. Stupid Pepe What I wanted to say in first place was that we should just let authors show content within context they want and with their own comment. Then judge.
Thing like this shouldn't have place. According to link, putting video on Youtube and adding Valvetime logo on the beginning is out of place.
3. Believe me buddy, I'm more than a lot of people into discussion and argumentation. Shame that I made idiot of myself in first place. Criticism - of course as long if it's not just whining without arguments. About your "fanatics" - it's hard for me to relate to BM situation, but I guess true lies in the middle and you'll find people thinking that you're idiot because you think different on both sides of the barrier. It doesn't matter if you've got arguments to prove your statement and they don't. It happens everywhere, it won't change unfortunately.

Are we good at last ? Or still I should kick myself in the face ?

I'll hold judgment when I see official gameplay video and not by some anonymous person.

No problem, Pepe, i appreciate your courage of being able to criticize yourself as well. In fat, i didn´t see any problem with the gameplay and features of the leaked video, as per my personal view.
It´s only that i have seen enough bigotry on the part of so many people, that try to feel superior by attacking others, that i decided to speak out.
Peace and good look to you when you finally play the game they worked super hard to create.

My word there are a lot of people complaining but to what end? Number one: it's clear a huge amount of work and effort has gone into this mod, I mean the high production quality even comes through on this average quality Youtube, but, surprise surprise many are not commending the team behind this for what seems to be a great looking game.

Number two: the gameplay looks like half-life; no one can say for sure if it will feel completely the same yet until they've actually gotten their hands on it and played it but from the looks of things I have few doubts. Sure, there's iron-sights (for the revolver and crossbow only apparently) and head-bobble (maybe) but everything else looked like a direct Half-life remake but no one commends them for everything they got right. Oh no, everyone just loves to complain and point out what they dislike. I mean this is a completely free Mod; you're not even going to have to pay for it, so why complain so? You can criticse it like anything else but marry your constructive criticism with positive feedback as well because there's plenty to be postive about here even in this short video.

- get rid of those bloody ironsights (or at least an option to turn it off as a compromise)
- head bobbling, seriously ?!
- horrible weapon sounds (why you didn't put in those original ones or HL2)
- voice acting like "It's time to kick-ass and chew bubblegum." (if i would want to make a Duke Nukem parody, these two guys would have been heroes)

Guys I know it's hard and exhausting to make an independent game or mod in these times but seriously you need to define borders that you don't want to (and can't) cross.

Head bobbing and iron sights are lines that NO FPS maker should EVER cross?

Thanks for backing me up (and explaining)

Indie game is not of the same level of difficulty with a free fan made mod that remakes an entire classic game.

In other news:

From developer Daniel Junek (Raminator) from the official forums:
http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=474952&postcount=546

The downside of having such a media blackout/echo chamber forum: you only get perspective on how you **** things up 'choose poorly' when there's a leak.

Is it reasonable for them to change those fairly significant elements this far into development, especially in response to a media release they did not plan for?

It seems like they did not wish to develop the mod with continual community feedback, adjusting accordingly at every stage. So, if such a short video caused so mixed a response, what are they going to do if future presentations get similar reactions?

I said:

"Guys I know it's hard and exhausting to make an independent game or mod in these times..."

and yes again I know how difficult it is and you also said it yourself: "a free fan made mod that remakes an entire classic game" which even multiplies what approach you need to take in development because it's classic so there are certain things you can't mess with.

Guys, you should really check the links in the post. One of the Devs answered many questions, and this leak was actually an early iteration of a more refined video that was supposed to go out instead.

For the people who don't like headbob - fyi, it's head tilt in this video, not head bob - and that was present in the WON version of Half-Life very slightly, as well as Quake 1 before it. You can turn that off, just like you can disable the iron-sights for the 357 if you don't like them. Besides, there were/are plenty of games that have iron sights that don't play like a modern shooter at all, I doubt them including that means they don't know what they are doing.

Also this song is actually outdated, there's a different song there in the actual game, and you can always change all the music and weapon sounds yourself once it's released if you want to make it more "authentic", or wait for a mini-mod for it, which is sure to pop up after release.

And don't worry about them redoing the bad voices, they've already stated that if it were to deter them from the current release schedule/take up a considerable amount of time to change they wouldn't be doing it. So the voices will be more like HL1, and it won't hurt their dev time, win-win.

And FYI, don't mistake classic for flawless, because those two words don't mean the same thing. If this mod were that similar to HL1, there would be even less of a point of playing this mod instead of just going back and playing HL1.

How would that matter? Official gameplay would be a part they want you to see that is staged to hell and back and completely scripted if you want the truth. What you're seeing is what the game will actually be like.

I mean I don't know about you, but I'd rather see *actual* gameplay than some staged bullshit like 90% of gameplay videos from anyone.

But that's the thing, this IS official gameplay, recorded by the devs - just not uploaded by them, so in a sense it is an official gameplay video.

They also said the final video would have been done on a harder difficulty than easy like it is in this one.

This. The music sting was shitty and the voice acting was also shitty but complaining about f**king Iron Sights? Come on guys. Sue them for updating the game a little to make it more realistic, as if nobody in the world would ever aim down the sights of a gun while shooting it. Why do guns have sights? Oh yeah, to look down for better aim while shooting.

Like previously stated, it's supposedly an old build, stuff will probably change but Goddamn, complaining about Iron Sights on guns, what the hell? If you're gonna be pissy about that, play the game without ever aiming down the gun, then. Simples.

Sorry but I'm not sure you understand anything about game design. By your logic, games should have 2 keys to walk forward, one for each foot. It's more realistic. We have 2 feet, and we use both to walk. Why is walking represented by the abstract concept of "forward"?

When you add features to a game, you have to think about what it does for the game. Iron sights does not add anything to this game. There is no reason for it to be there. You already have crosshairs.

I think it's worthy of complaining about because it indicates that they don't understand game design. You don't just add things for the sake of realism or because other games have it. This is not "updating" their game. This is demonstrating a lack of thinking. If they can tell me an actual reason for adding ironsights, how it benefits the game and fits the style of halflife, then I'd like to hear it.

I really don't know how you can get from the sentiments I expressed in my post, which was an opinion about the manner in which people were expressing their criticism, to suggesting that I think criticism shouldn't be allowed or that all their complaints are wrong. And I never claimed to be a BM developer, or to speak for them, so I have no idea why you are accusing me of "pretending" to do so.

What I said, quite clearly, was that there are better, more polite, and more constructive ways to express criticism than the kind of aggressive, attacking posts that some people made in response to this leak. Saying you don't like the voice acting is one thing, calling the Black Mesa developers "idiots", as someone did in the 5th post in this thread, is quite another. The developers are human beings who devoted an extraordinary amount of time to producing a free game for the community. That doesn't exempt them from criticism, but I think it should entitle them to a little more courtesy than some people have shown.

Personally, I agree with most of the criticisms, but I disagree with the somewhat angry and assholish nature in which they were expressed. I think that was partly what pissed off a lot of Black Mesa fans and caused them to become angry in response. Of course, people are free to express themselves in whatever manner they see fit, but I'm also free to call out that behaviour if I think it's wrong.

Okay, that's dumb and massively pedantic and just no. It adds the ability to look down sights. It detracts nothing like implementing one key for each foot would. My God... just... really?

Illustrating a point. If that's all you have to say, then good day. Thanks for the downvote.

Does anybody remember when playing video games used to be about enjoying the experience rather than being nit-picky assholes about leaked footage of a FREE REMAKE of a game done entirely at the expense and time of SOMEONE ELSE who is neither forcing you to play the game, nor be happy about the way they've remade it?

Also THIS:

Why are there iron-sights in the game?

You can look down the sights of the .357 for a slight zoom and increase in accuracy at the expense of your rate of fire. It was a mechanic that was present in Half-Life: Deathmatch, but we've brought it into the singleplayer to help solidify the weapon's role. We've added an option to the main menu to completely disable that functionality, as a result of the feedback we've received from the video.

The .357 and crossbow are the only weapons that you can use the sights on, and they're for decent gameplay reasons. We aren't casualising or consolifying the mod; you don't have regenerating health, there aren't chest-high walls, you won't get strawberry jam on the screen when you're hurt, etc.

Vegeta obviously didn't read (or didn't read very well) the BMS statement. You can disable it.

Thank you.

And I wasn't one of the nitpickers, I was just explaining why I personally thought it was a dumb addition. If I had seen that response beforehand I wouldn't have said anything. So props to me for not reading shit.

I can't speak for the developer's motivations, but my guess is that iron-sights is intended to help better differentiate the primary shooting mode from the secondary mode. In the first, you are shooting from the hip, whereas in the second you are aiming more carefully, and adjusting the gun to look down the barrel helps to emphasise and explain that.

The original HL mechanic of the second fire button just zooming in the screen a bit (in DM) did not make much sense. It's not like the weapon has a telescopic sight, so what exactly was happening? Adding in an ironsights animation helps to explain the transition and create a more logical and immersive game experience.

You might not agree with the choice, but I don't think it's fair to suggest it's an unthinking one. If every gun had been given iron-sights, then that would be different, but they've added it specifically to a gun that already had a zooming action, so I think it's a legitimate artistic decision.

Hahaha.

Does anybody remember when video games used to be ABOVE CRITICISM because they're being offered at a CERTAIN PRICE? I mean why can't we just SMILE AND APPLAUD like it's a shitty school play because the developers have worked JUST SO HARD ON THIS and are delivering it, again, at A CERTAIN PRICE? Did we forget what INFALLIBLE means?

Vegeta is right, realism has nothing to do with good game design nor does that one aspect of it in anyway represent progress in the genre. If it were a logical update to HL gameplay then why did Valve not add it in HL2 or either episodes, or in HL itself for that matter (lack of technology wasn't exactly preventing this major breakthrough)? Because it doesn't fit the game.

I never said the thing was above criticism. I was merely saying it's stupid to foam so much about the expectations of a remake based on something that not only is an extremely minor thing but has also been addressed by the BMS team.

Read the frigging statement posted in the article before moaning about the iron sights.

There's a lot of "it doesn't fit Half-Life" comments when the iron-sight functionality was in HL: Death Match, so then you obviously don't know what is and what isn't Half-Life that well. Again you can disable it. This whole "OMG they're turning it into COD" thing is just silly, in my opinion.

Frankly, I don't have a very strong opinion about it one way or the other, I was just responding to what appeared to be your reaction to Vegeta's reply to your rather silly reasoning about ironsights. If you're reacting to the world at large, fine, I'm sure there are some people overly upset about this stuff, but given that your post seemed to be an immediate reply to Vegeta, in that context, whether that was the case or not, I stand by it. You didn't comment on the nature of peoples complaints, just the complaints, about ironsights, and you rationalized that change as "updating the game to make it a little more realistic". Adding in features solely because they're either more realistic or more popular in more recent games is simply not a good game design decision, plain and simple. And absolutely nothing is above criticism, no matter its price or any other feature.

Looking back at HL, not having ironsights is one pretty obvious distinct feature between it and modern shooters. BMS is supposed to be HL with improved and more modern graphics. Ironsights are either a blatant (and pointless) display change or a blatant, if small, gameplay alteration (and by that quote it's the latter), neither of which really meet that description. Since you can disable it I suppose it doesn't matter, but they were only asking for a backlash by having it in the first place. It should come as no surprise.

rage more nerds