How This Once Famous Mod Lost Everything

[@Radiocures]

So basically Firearms is Insurgency Gold source

[@eliososa6878]

Firearms 2 is a thing

[@FrankBlaskovich]

the first insurgency was on gold src

[@dusanrakic5955]

@@FrankBlaskovich no it wasn't

[@FrankBlaskovich]

@@dusanrakic5955 look up "insurgency: modern combat", its an hl1 mod from 2003

[@iDarkslay]

@@FrankBlaskovich no its was source

[@BathySalts]

I was the leader of a Firearms Source 2.0 community revival back in 2016, it was good for about a year until I stepped away to deal with more important life stuff. Our little group imploded with crazy factional infighting and by the time I came back everything was gone. Good video!

[@LimboJimbo]

Thanks so much for your effort, although ultimately it didn't result in what you and the team had envisioned. I was following the updates on the 2.0 rework very closely and loaded up the page quite frequently to check whether there were any news on the project. I continued to do so for quite a while until I somewhen realized that the project was probably dead, which made me quite sad. I would still play Firearms Source 2.0, but I can imagen that the chances of you or someone picking that project up again are VERY slim. Still, it's cool to meet you here after such a long time, a much younger me followed your work very closely :) Out of curiosity: Do you still have the files of the latest/ one of the latest builds? Or do you mean that those also disappeared when you say "everything was gone"?

[@hawkin_gaming]

Half-Life Firearms might have inspired people that made the "Insurgency" mod for Half-Life 2, which is also a tactical shooter where you can select your own weapons and attachments to it, although the weapon choice is limited to different team roles. It even became a standalone Source Engine game in 2014(as Insurgency), and got a remake on UE4 in 2018(as Insurgency:Sandstorm)

[@OperatorMax1993]

For Insurgency the game got refined and improved (along with more stuff like weapon variety), they also made Day Of Infamy (unfortunately not much is done, it would have been interesting to see the Soviets, Italians, Chinese and Japanese but oh well) As for Insurgency Sandstorm it does feel like they kind of ditched realism like with some cosmetics and such, at this point they left a skeleton crew leaving small drops of distant updates. Not sure what the devs are working on next

[@FrankBlaskovich]

the first insurgency was built on gold src and based on the lead devs experience in iraq as a british infantryman

[@Fjdjfjsz92938]

@@hawkin_gaming not even really the same thing, this seems like a more hardcore version of cs honestly

[@Some.Canadian]

@@OperatorMax1993 Devs were disbanded just a couple years into Sandstorm, Spearin left to make a passion project, Blum tried to turn the game into a moneymaker. NWI got bought up in the Embracer hug of death and brain drain with talent going to larger games and projects (CoD 2019 stealing the best animator on the team for ex.) NWI shuttered by Embracer not long after and Saber Interactive (team behind the console port) has taken up the reins of development. Insurgency is only a shell with a name at this point.

[@perfectlyroundcircle]

This is a history that I never knew. It reminds me how much work, creativity, drama, and so on went into all these forgotten projects you can find on the internet. You could call it video game archeology. I love videos like this.

[@ryszakowy]

before garry's mod combined all source mods together we had half-life mods separately

[@mark009vn]

Oh dear god Firearms. You know how you said 2.5 is not very different from 3.0. Well, that was far from the truth in the minds of the people at the time, FA before 3.0 styled itself as a quake arena shooter with realistic firearms and 2.5 reflected this. 3.0 was a radical departure from 2.5 for trying to be a more "realistic" tactical shooter. People at the time really didn't like that change in direction and the community was split down the middle. Here comes FAS and FA2, which aside from the drama were products of the two opposing camps, FAS is a "return" to the 2.5 version, while FA2 is a "continuation" of 3.0. FAS and FA2 were also spearheaded by the lead devs of 2.5 and 3.0 respectively, so the supposed hijacking of FA was perceived by some people as going as far back to 3.0 release. This is why there was such a huge rift between the two mods, and why you can be absolutely flamed if you mentioned the name of the other mod in one mod's forum, that was an internet drama from a different time and it was wild watching it pan out vicariously back in the day.

[@grimscribe6454]

100% agree. If you were there, the switchover was crazy different! I remember feeling how polished 3.0 was to 2.5. I really loved the m60 and desert eagle sounds in 2.5 though. Powerful

[@mikedecruze8018]

You are on point. FA2.5 was incredibly fun and I spent weeks playing it, the movement the gunplay, everything. While 3.0 was most "polished", it lost the charm and fun factor, I gave 3.0 a few tries but never got into it. Unfortunately FAS never lived up to the original FA2.5 and as the author of the video said, there were better options to play rendering it obsolete.

[@grimscribe6454]

@@mikedecruze8018 yeah, 2.5 was the high watermark for me. Auuuuuugh

[@prochifVODS]

Huh so thats where that gmod ifak medkit mod comes from

[@trofchik9488]

Even from the looks of it, FA:S feels very different from CoD. No regenerating health, guns requiring shooting in semi instead of being laser accurate in full-auto out to absurd ranges. I wonder if some of the devs later ended up working on Insurgency or Rising Storm.

[@BreakTheCycle106]

That's because FA:S is a tactical shooter while COD is an arcade shooter.

[@kkarhiiv95]

I still sometimes play Firearms: Source alone. Just pretending to play the game gives me joy, even though I have never been on a server with other people or bots.

[@cundan0484]

There was a game called Operation 7 and it had gunsmith style weapon customization back in 2005... It also had omni movement 20 years before call of duty "invented" it.

[@HaraldQuake]

Half-Life 2 also has omnimovement and it sucks. HL1 / original Quake movement or CoD4 movement are much better

[@planetfixer]

"some random game 4 people have heard of from 20 years ago ACTUALLY invented the concept of moving backwards and side to side" you sound like a spiteful moron yelling at a wall

[@CatsOverdrive]

@@HaraldQuake Welp, that kinda makes sense, as the IW engine that was used from CoD4 to BlackOps2, uses idTech3(QuakeIII) as it's base/foundation.

[@Shakaleesh]

It is absolutely wild to see a video like this about the game I was a beta tester for back in highschool. Working with the FA:S guys was one of the highlights of my childhood and it's a shame how it kinda just fizzled out. I hope they're doing well. Edit: To be clear I was in when FA:S 2.0 was being developed. It was released and got to a 2.0.2 state IIRC. Kinda gutted to realized that the ModDB page only has 1.0f. The 2.0 release was hosted on the website that went down years ago, wasn't it? Fuck.

[@Geekysam713]

I remember this mod being bundled with Half Life Generation pack (Mine contained Opposing Force, Absolute Redemption mod, a old version of Counter Strike which featured a training level, Richochet, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, and a multi-player only version of the wild west mod Wanted. I honestly miss this era of GoldSrc multi-player mods I am glad atleast The Specialists, Ricochet, Day of Defeat, and Deathmatch Classic are still played today to a limited extant. Hope these forgotten defunct multi-player mods also regain interest of players thorough videos like yours.

[@LimboJimbo]

Thanks for giving the Firearms mod some love and well deserved attention. While it was quite popular during the 2000s, partly the first half, it pretty much disappeared from public memory after that. It was so much fun and very well made, it was my most played GoldSrc mod just after CS 1.6.

[@JordanManfrey]

God I played the hell out of this. I still have all my PC Gamer magazines hyping this mod up and the demo CDs with old versions of Firearms on it

[@mobiusraptor7]

Ah yes back when mods were officially santioned and not C&D'd on sight. The only modern example of a mod getting the dev's blessing is the Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

[@MrSomebodyStrange]

I played FA: S when it was released, and I felt it was a blast to play. I remember it feeling a bit more arcadey, but I think the reason for it was the Source movement which is much smoother than its twitchy Goldsrc counterpart. Also I'd add that it was not made for the Call of Duty crowd. I'd say that the overall feel of gameplay was somewhat similar to Codemasters' continuation of Operation Flashpoint games (i.e. Dragon Rising and Red River) but faster, with bigger reliance on twitch reflexes with team deathmatch-style smaller maps.

[@user-zezezozodarkdomains]

6:30 happened once in Renegade X (a fully free remake of C&C Renegade's multiplayer mode) and the sole perp (which, unlike the Firearms example above, did nothing that deserve their credit) played victim by turning the hijacked site into a forum with tirades that paint them as the victim with sockpuppets apparently defending them. Hilarious. Totem Arts managed to regain control and rehost in a different address. Renegade X still up with full bot support (given the sporadic community) though updates were minuscule and unsubstantial because why fix that wasn't broke? Meanwhile FA Source was either ahead of its time or that it has the distinctive "korean F2P FPS" (like Sudden Attack or Special Force 2) look in which not only it was too many but it has large playerbases, bots, and ways to attract players.

[@m4rloncha]

Wow, I never heard of that mod. It looks like a "modern warfare" version of Day of Defeat. Great lore behind it.

[@擻]

breaking your legs and bleed reminds me of urban terror

[@OlujaDoTokija]

I was a huge fan of Firearms Source, it's sad that the game was silently killed off.

[@NisseDood]

World at war sounds like what Battlefield 2 became.

[@CatsOverdrive]

Which further honed into by the now standalone BF2 mod; Project Reality.

[@mobiusraptor7]

@@NisseDood I mean...Battlefield 1942 had a mod called Desert Combat which was based on the Iraq War at the time. The devs were hired by DICE to make BF2; that's a fact.

[@grimscribe6454]

I have nothing but the fondest memories of this mod. As a teenager I played it every day, starting with 2.5. It was such a beautiful time for halflife mods. Even today I’ll still go on it every once in a while off steam…silence. Just bots. Would be great to play with folks again

[@bongo6_462]

If I wasnt a little baby in 2001 but like 20 year old back then I wouldve LOVED this shit

[@P4INKiller]

Mathematicians already figured out how to invert a sphere. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[@SuperJoe]

As someone who worked as part of the Firearms Source team for a time, I can safely say that leadership is what killed that project. A huge update was being worked on and heavily playtested, and then the entire team was forced to make a radical left turn and the game just...never played well anymore, at least in my opinion. There was also tension between certain members of the team, some of which was born out of certain personalities getting a little too big for their boots. I'll never know why we didn't release that 2.0 version we worked so hard on before rapidly changing direction. Such a shame - those playtests were an awful lot of fun.

[@OperatorMax1993]

It was such a tragedy, i wish Firearms survived to this day (also True Combat, basically Firearms but in Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory)

[@morbo5135]

People still play True Combat: Elite - there's a discord community for it As for FA/FA:S, yeah, they're unfortunately p much dead. At least FA1 has Marinebots

[@AllisterCaine]

I loved true combat...

[@toxictower]

One of my fav mods! Along with The Opera, The Specialists, Tour of Duty, Action

[@EntryLevelLuxury]

Firearms and The Specialists were the two best mods :D

[@fr4nmo475]

I Still playing it, with Marine bots, a true classic Mod

[@humanharddrive1]

god I love a history lesson like this

[@Ashraf-Hrira]

call of duty before call of duty

[@vadimkakuku4216]

@@Ashraf-Hrira counter strike before counter strike

[@tarekcat1]

Cod isn't even that "realistic"

[@truestbluu]

not really, call of duty is more of an arcade shooter compared to a realistic shooter

[@DeanAmx]

Day of defeat is before call of duty. Same developer and publisher too.

[@official.ajclaveria]

Let’s go… Even though I haven’t finished the video I already knew this will be a banger!

[@dimitarivanovski6322]

There are still a bunch of lunatics who still play FA:Source, but their server requires an unofficial patch (they attempted to fix a few things ..for better or worse). Hell, I am down for a good old FA 3.0 match if we can get people - there are still a couple of servers up and running, with bots currently.

[@mikewilliams7426]

omg so many memories! humans vs. a horde of bots on sd_durandal was a staple of lan games with friends back in the middle/highschool days :P FA is one of the haldful of mods I still keep a server up for, some two decades later :D

[@shackle_ton]

...not everything has to have a continuing community

[@mr.kingxd5400]

Can u make a video about Unreal Tournament mod Infiltration? It's also a hidden gem 😢

[@Englebert3rd]

@@mr.kingxd5400 I reinstalled Infiltration just a few days ago and it's crazy what they've done with the Unreal engine. Tactical Ops feels like a mutator instead of a full-on total conversion.

[@OperatorMax1993]

Love Infiltration, also would be cool to see the True Combat Elite and Urban Terror mod covered

[@AllisterCaine]

Yeah... I played around on the shooting range as a kid... You could pick up mags and such. It was almost milsim to me.

[@trofchik9488]

Isn't it the one Ground Branch has its roots in?

[@riiyaFGC]

Oh hey, I played a bunch of Firearms Source when it still had players. Didn't know about its history though

[@JonathanLundkvist]

Firearms was the mod for me; partly because Counterstrike did not work properly for me.

[@its_neo_ig]

great video! Could you also talk about the history of Sven Co-op ?

[@killervacuum]

it would be cool if these goldsrc mods could be repackaged with xash3d or whatever and distributed as free standalone.

[@AshyToast]

I had FA:S content in my GMod from way back when and had no idea it was a whole expansion.

[@spronkjohnson804]

Me too!! That shit was my go to weapon addon until Spy released CW 2.0. Kinda bummed I missed my chance to play the game lol

[@markw7303]

wow i used to play a lot of all the old versions of firearms there wer so many

[@alfan0079]

man even counter strike source is still playable

[@LowEndPCGamer100]

now id like to see someone talk about infiltration mod for UT99, it literally started the tactical shooter genre we know today, and plays just like the red orchestra 3.3 mod for UT2k4, which would eventually become a standalone series as most of us know. too bad the bots in literally all of those games were trash, making them impossible to enjoy now, unless you can somehow find a game. the person behind marinebot is a literal god among men, ensuring that firearms can be enjoyed for years to come. although this stands true for most goldsrc mods, the only one id like to see a decent bot mod for now is science and industry. but i can imagine that being super tough given the nature of the game.

[@rokinz3270]

I think I played a beta of this a long time ago back when the m4 had a 100 rnd drum mag and the maps sucked. Kinda forgot it exists til now

[@Veluca-n1c]

I honestly wonder if Firearms would've been picked up by Valve like how Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat was if it had gotten big enough. I mean, they acknowledged its existence in a good light

[@Catdash5510]

man i feel like the cs 1.6 community is pretty dead

[@OperatorMax1993]

Yeah it's unfortunate, always been a 1.6 fan, it had a theme, an identity, a setting (that being around counter terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s, similar to Rainbow Six 1-3). Unfortunately after 1.6 (and Source), CSGO forever ditched that setting, going all in to the competitive scene (the exact same fate Rainbow Six would be put into years later, gradually losing it's identity as well)

[@Teh_Zig]

Ohhhh this is gonna be sweet, Firearms was my favorite mod!

[@alvagamer5477]

u should try out a mod called infiltration is in moddb and uses the unreal tournament as a base

[@lenzi5119]

Wow they have not flipped ak? Already a plus.

[@the_not_real_bigboss]

This needs to come back

[@daikoophasianidae]

finest hour music lol

[@appletreeblunt]

I remember playing this one

[@ecoterrorist]

Pretty sure there was a fire arms nod for gmod, great weapons mod

[@Bunnehhopsarego]

there was! i had a part in developing the firearms source weapons pack for garrysmod. it might still be publicly accessible but i would be unsure of how stable it remains seeing as it would be around 12 years or so old now.

[@ecoterrorist]

@@Bunnehhopsarego I cbf reinstalling gmod to check, but im sure it still works, and im sure its probably up there with the best weapons mods for gmod, thanks for your work!

[@the_not_real_bigboss]

Holy shit it's my dad's favorite mod! In a video! In the year of 2024!!!

[@WeSUMMERx]

It kinda reminds me a lot of what we have in Insurgency today Maybe insurgency used Firearms as inspiration to be created?

[@k.m6879]

is there a community that plays the gold source version ???

[@MemeMarine]

Come on, you can't make a video like this without mentioning Firearms: Source 2.0 Alpha or Military Conflict: Vietnam

[@azimprime]

I still have this game until now. I add bot but it seem like the bot is broken.

[@ATvideoz]

You gonna do Crossfire next?

[@buzgljodin]

i swear man, you gotta make an video about DBSource

[@some-replies]

Invertisphere

[@SeanobLulz]

OTF never dies

[@quad4machine769]

Frontline force exists too

[@wumarNart]

So, Firearms livestream when ?

[@Foxtrop13]

this is what team fortress could have been

[@spiffinz]

Do Hostile Intent next

[@elpucho3182]

There is bots for the 3.0 version?

[@spiffinz]

Game was fucking LIT!!!

[@rokinz3270]

Could you do a video on front line force? That used to be a great mod but died off

[@xalener]

honestly I played the fuck out of Firearms Source

[@HaraldQuake]

I played the mod every now and then. It was fun but I think the gameplay wasn't super satisfiying. Would like to try Firearms: Source again. Maybe someone can do a community event or something...

[@Fat_mongoloid]

I LIKE QUAKE

[@guncanny]

Tarkov 1.6

[@Mr.SpicyIce]

I was your 1,000th viewer on this video.

[@Mr.SpicyIce]

If only I could prove it.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Nobody cares.

[@Mr.SpicyIce]

@@FlyboyHelosim k buck

[@pyrodontcutoffsoldiershand2746]

Hey! Goldsrc is not jank

[@the_not_real_bigboss]

Firearms is like Day of Defeat but 10x more hardcore

[@maximkikena622]

snipers ruin the game

[@Luke_4044]

yooo sheeesh 5 minutes early

[@rjtitus2034]

34th

[@bindlesairsoft408]

Wow I’m early

[@igasuguseidasju1699]

When we played this in LAN as younglings i changed the damage and screams files to my own recorded stuff. So whenever someone got hit he made a custom pain effect i recorded on my shiddy mic. It was one of the best mods. This and Day of defeat.... OG-s