Bad news from top Eclipse developer

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

The following is a reply I've kindly got from Jeff Browne, Game Designer /
Level Designer for Eclipse:
But before you read his reply, here are my inquiries:

- Jay:
I was wondering if there'll be any further development on it. I did enjoy
the game overall, but I must admit I did miss some of the "elemental
features" of HL2, like the ability to sprint-run, to zoom. And others quite
basic, like ducking. So I guess my question would be: are these kind of
things going to be added eventually?

- Jeff B.:

Thank you for taking the time to download and play Eclipse. As you probably
already know, Eclipse was a 5-month student project. At the end of the
project we all graduated from the Guildhall at SMU. The majority of us have
moved on to jobs in the industry making it very difficult to continue work
on the Eclipse. Our programmers have already informed me that they will not
be able to update/fix/add/etc any more content for Eclipse. Our artists
have mentioned they want to create more content, but really don't have the
necessary free time to do so. Out level designers, myself included, have
decided to try our hardest to get more levels out to the community. A
couple of the level designers that were working on levels have gone into
crunch mode where they work so they have abandoned any work for Eclipse as
of now. We will try our hardest to get more levels to you guys, but it's
not looking good right now. It's very hard for us to put together anything
without the team together in one room. Everyone is scattered across the US.
I apologize for the long-winded response to your question. But to answer it
more directly: no, the features you listed will not be added to Eclipse
anytime in the near future. Our original intention was to produce a game
that did not resemble HL2 at all. We thought about those "elemental
features" but decided we didn't need them. They wouldn't have helped our
game systems at all so we didn't bother spending time and resources on
implementing them.
As to where I think the game is going? Well, a number of things could
happen: (1) Members of our team could possibly get together one last time to
produce some more content. (2) Somehow, some other
person/developer/publisher buys the rights to Eclipse from the Guildhall.
(3) The community releases content on our site that they created.
Again, thanks for taking the time to play through Eclipse. All of us worked
really hard on it and are proud of the way it turned out given the project's
time-frame.

Take care,

Jeff Browne
Game Designer / Level Designer for Eclipse
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So there you have it. If you have tried this HL2 total conversion mod, you
might agree with me in that it's a shame that such a good mod has to stand
so little chance to survive. At the very least I hope that it'll serve as
inspiration to other Modders out there, and incorporate some of the ideas
found in this one, especially the telekinesis ability. Of course, better yet
would be that programmer fans were to continue refining the mod as it feels
a bit unpolished.

Jay