Version 1.0 release date: 7th of June 2010 Version 1.1 release date: 5th of September 2010 Fate Reversal - Half-Life single-player mod: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fate-reversal ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title : Fate Reversal Release Date : 7th of June 2010 5th of September 2010 (version 1.1) Author : Mikko Sandt Misc. Author Info : 25 years old, student of economics, lives in Finland. Conversion Author : Zorik Email Address : mikko.sandt@gmail.com Web Page : http://msdn.duke4.net Other levels : Tons of levels for Duke Nukem 3D (see my site, URL above), one level for Unreal Tournament (MSUT1), two for Q3A (MSTourney1 & Lifeline), one level for Quake (Distractions) and a small Counter-Strike map (aim_mesayard). Description : A ten-level single-player mod for Half-Life. Plot : From my ModDB page: "What if Freeman weren't held in stasis during the portal storm that ravaged the Earth and caught the attention of the Combine? What if Freeman had a chance to prevent the Combine invasion from ever materializing? What if Freeman could reverse mankind's fate?" Info: : I always look forward to finally getting to this point where I can write the txt. Usually this means one or two hours before your work is released to the public. However, like always, the uppermost feeling you have is frustration because you have just spent weeks trying to fix bugs and improve gameplay. And, like always, the finished product is not everything you wanted it to be. However, these feelings tend to be transitory. Let a few days, weeks or months pass and the good times are all you remember although there never were any. As a long-time fan of Half-Life single-player mods, I had always wanted to make my own mod. Work on Fate Reversal began in December 2007. The first map was a crude version of what is now the fifth map (the night-time city). After just one month I stopped working for about a year. In 2009 work on levels 1, 2, 3 (which was based on my Counter-Strike map), 4 and 7 began. By May 2009 I had gone on another long break. I always knew that this mod would see the light of day. While most people are poor at finishing the projects they start, I'm poor at abandoning projects. They're just too much work to be let go to waste. Work resumed in January 2010 and I started working on levels 6, 8, 9 and 10. The project went public in May. I swore that I'd have this thing done by the end of May/beginning of June. Otherwise my head would explode. So, I've been in a "crunch" mode for the past few weeks, anxiously waiting for the day of my liberation which is today, the seventh of June. Of course I could have kept on going, fixing bugs and improving both design and gameplay but there's a point beyond which the benefits of marginal improvements are simply not worth the trouble. In a world of finite resources the time you spend on trying to get some stupid multi_manager sequence just right is inevitably gone from some other, quite likely a billion times more productive activity. Anyways. Now it's finally done and I'm free to pursue other interests, which probably means starting another mapping project in a few months. And so I'm off to watch some hockey. Additional Credits to : First of all, thanks to my beta-testers: Ben Greenwood (also helped me with getting Osprey to trigger something; check his mod "Operation Nova"), Stephane "Stef" Meganck (http://spmapcorner.blogspot.com/) & Luciano "Gambini" Gallo (http://gambinidesign.blogspot.com/). HL mods such as Timeline 2 & 3, Sweet Half-Life, Life's End, They Hunger and Someplace else served as primary sources of inspiration. Also, Stephen King's "The Stand" influenced the opening. David Kushner's "Masters of Doom", which tells the story of John Carmack & John Romero, was a motivational boost. The Gate Duke3D TC inspired me to make a space-themed level. TWHL, Snarkpit & Chatbear provided tons of userful tutorials. The Wavelength.net had a useful list of HL entities. Textures, skyboxes and models are mostly from fpsbanana and Wadfather (no longer running). I'd credit the authors of these materials directly if that were possible. Some textures are from Counter-Strike, Hour-Glass & Dalek: Unbidden. Qwertyus provided the statue of Gordon Freeman. Some computer screens are from cs_twhl by Rimrook. Sounds I found from internet sound libraries such as PacDV and shockwave-sound.com. The street sound in level 4 was used in a Duke3D map by Sanek & Zykov Eddy. Prefabs by Lucifucum (Bus Stop), Gtwalq, Marcus M, ComaWhite, Yak_Fighter, Freddy Kruger, Adam Grebinsky [ShadowByte], Brian Wheeler, Robert and many others whose names were not available. Websites such as tenfourmaps, ModDB and planetphillip are worth a mention thanks to their attempts to keep the single-player mapping scene alive (not to mention that it was through tenfourmaps that I really got into the whole HL single-player mod gaming). Also thanks to the Duke3D Community, as always, and Iikka Ker�nen & George W. Bernard for their great Quake/Duke3D maps that got me into mapping and taught me a lot. Version 1.1 update: Thanks to people at Planetphillip, moddb, AMC forums and the Abandoned Workshops for feedback. Thanks also to anyone who might have posted this mod online and thus helped distribute it. "To the people I forgot, you weren't on my mind for some reason and you probably don't deserve any thanks anyway." -Eminem ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Play Information * Single Player : Yes Cooperative : No Deathmatch : No New Sounds : Yes New Textures : Plenty New Models : A few * Construction * Base : From scratch, except level 3 which is based on my aim_mesayard Counter-Strike map Editor used : Worldcraft 3.3 Other tools : Wally, Gimp, Irfanview, PakScape, GoldWave, Zoner's Half-Life Tools Compile Machine : Intel Core 2 Duo E4400, 2GHZ, GeForce 8600GT Compile Time : From a few minutes (the first map) to more than an hour (the fourth and fifth maps) Known Bugs/Problems : Several misaligned textures. You may get stuck between level transitions if you don't enter transition sectors "smoothly". In case this happens, use "noclip" to pass through walls or load a previous game and position yourself better (=stay away from walls) while entering the transition sector. Construction Time : Work began in December 2007 but 95% of all the work was done during the first quarter of 2009 and the first two quarters of 2010. How to Install : Place the mod folder ("fate") in your Half-Life directory (Steam or non-Steam). In case your Steam was running while you installed the mod, you need to restart it. Then choose the mod from the library menu. If you're not using Steam, simply launch Half-Life, go to "Custom Game" menu and activate Fate Reversal. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Copyright / Permissions * Copyright (c) 2010 Mikko Sandt Half-Life is a registered trademark of Valve. You're free to distribute Fate Reversal. However, do not alter or remove any of the files in the zip. My name must always be attached to Fate Reversal which means always distributing the mod with this txt included. If you want to make money with Fate Reversal, you're free to do so provided the aforementioned conditions are met, but I cannot speak for those who provided material for this mod.