Poll Question 205 – Was 2010 a good year for SP Source Mods?

31st December 2010

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

By the time you read this it may be 2011. 2010 is just a memory, so when you look back on 2010 modwise, was it good?

For those that need a little help, please visit my Modwall 2010 to see all the mods published on this site. Of course, there were other SP mods released that weren’t covered here but it gives you are good idea of what is around.

I’ll be writing my review of the year next week, as well as starting the Mod Of The Year voting, but this poll is really just your chance to tell me what you think of the year overall.

With my modwalls, I like to see the first mod I posted for that year and in this case it was Too Many Crates!. I can’t believe a year has gone by since that one.

I think we had some great releases this year but there was a lot of not so great too. The last 10 days saw some good stuff but if I had to say Yes, or No, I would edge towards No.

What about you?

The Poll


15 Comments

  1. s.anchev

    We get some good mod’s overall… Like every year, we have some crap mod’s, some average mod’s, some single map’s focusing on puzzles (Miiga) and gameplay (Guildhall), and a few ambitions mod’s (Human Error, Citizen 2, Final Project, 1187) generally well-done…
    We have the usual vaporwares, the remakes or sequels of the original sries, waiting for releases…

    Well, prztty cool year.

  2. It wasn’t bad, but it’s clear that support for the core Half-Life 2 game is dwindling. Many modders have left for other games, such as Left 4 Dead, while others have given up Source entirely and gone for more general purpose solutions like Unity or the UDK which allow you to create almost anything you want.

    The Source Engine update a few months back didn’t help either. Well, I mean, it helped me. It closed the visual disparity between the Half-Lifes and allowed Sebastian to use Ep2-style lighting and effects while only invoking Ep1’s assets. But for those mods that were caught in mid-development, like The Citizen 2, Eye of the Storm 2, or even Final Project, it was a serious problem.

  3. Hec

    Well I think 2010 was kind of an “awaiting” year, because in this year we’re still expecting some good mod titles as DW2 dangerous world 2, or the great black mesa source…, that’s why I put a myabe, but I vote that way because I think not all 2010 was average or bad, I voted that way because are some little diamondas that came to live this year: as for example Human Error, which I think defenetly saves the year in HL2 modding, and in Portal, it came to life the BP project that if well it was kind of controvertial mod, defenetly is also one of the bests portal mods we saw in this 2010,

    So for that 2010 was defenetly not a grey year in modding production & launchings of all of them, also we can see some episodes that could give something more for the future like 1187 mod with apparent further episodes for the upcoming years, so we can say 2010 was a year in which defenetly we have still many mods and great maps to play.

    Also I could say it was a trascendental year for some recognized modders such as Leon Brinkman, and his last FPD mod which was controvertial, but defently closes an apparent cicle in his modder life, so good for him, and we only could expect to see some more of him after EP 3 is launched…
    Finally, in this lasts days the Citizen2 was launched so that’s another great mod that 2010 give to us, I have’nt play it yet but I think it’s so good…

    So well that’s all friends, I wish you a very productive modding new year, that sure 2011 it will!!!
    Happy new year wherever u are folks!

  4. It was a good year if you go by pure quality. Blue Portals, Nightmare House 2, Human Error, and a number of other quality mods came out this year, and they easily made the entire year, but ever since the source update, it felt like modding itself had stopped. Hopefully now that things have settled a bit, people will get back into source modding.

    1. Hec

      OH yep, I forgot to mention NH2, that’s a good one too in 2010!

  5. Yes, it was a good year. There were some quality finished mods and some WIPs with chapters released. Some maps were of the highest quality.
    It’s the quantity of quality maps and mods that is missing compared with 2009.
    Completed 2010 mods I have saved for replay are Final Project Diary, Dangerous World and Slums 2 Extended. I only save the best mods with high replay value.
    Mods I will save when they have been finished include Mission Improbable and The Citizen (2 & 3).
    2009 was the bumper year and we may not see the like of that again – I hope I’m wrong about that.

  6. Ricardo's

    It wasn’t a good year for HL1 mods

    1. Hec

      Oh good, completly agree, I think HL1 just has been left to dust in the shelf!!! where are the moders caring for doing a HL1 mod!!!, seem that we have 2 wait till Cry of Fear,survival horror mod of Rumpel’s is done in this 2011!!! that’s going to be a good one!!

      1. Yeah HL1 hasn’t many mod’s in 2010, but we have to face it, it’s been now 12 years since it’s release, HL1 has “made his time” in term of modding, modders want to move on other motors or building engines!

        CRY OF FEAR will surely be an amazing mod, as we can see in the trailer, it will push the GoldSrc engine to its ultimate limit’s, it will be a beautiful “swansong” for the HL1 modding.

        What would be enormous one day would be a mod spanning in episodes through all the games, following the story of a Black Mesa scientist during the Resonance Cascade (first episode with the GoldSrc), then this same guy as a resistance member during the HL2 events or the in-between HL1/HL2 (with the Source Engine this time), maybe even going to Aperture Science (a Portal mod!)

  7. dougjp

    The more mods the better, so I have to vote “no” for 2010. Just not enough of them for me, although there were some fantastic ones indeed.

  8. A few good mods and lots of ordinary stuff. Most of the mods were all the same. Well, in PP we may expect same mods over and over again due to content limitation, but still there were not enough good mods in general.

    Short answer no.

    UDK was a reason to an extent. Most modders decided to switch to UDK without knowing what they were about to do and they mostly failed miserably.

  9. I think mods like Blue Portals and NH2 made 2010 what it was.

  10. James Rossi

    It was a year of ambitious mods, but not necessarily good ones. While I recognize the effort put into many of the mods released this year, many of them simply did reach the standard they had clearly set for themselves. The mods on average felt longer, and that more work was put into them than in years past but the problem is that as a result this recent batch of mods almost all fell short of the potential they began to show. Nightmare House 2 is a good example of this I feel. A good deal of effort, a long experience, but the “scares” were not well executed, many puzzles were totally arbitrary and nonsensical, the voice acting had its moments but often failed due to writing more than talent, and in that same vein the plot was just F.E.A.R. with a bunch of other referenced materials. Not to pick on it though as again the effort involved is clear, and frankly almost every major mod release this year suffers very similar problems. So a year for good mods? I’d say things fell quite short of that. But it was an interesting year for sure.

  11. [MI] Stalk

    IMO for it to be a good year you need something long awaited to come out. In this case, it was Firearms Source and 1187.

  12. Hec

    oh and wilson chronicles hope is also schedulled for 2011, that will be a great release!

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