By Jim Rossignol on June 19th, 2009 at 8:50 am.
While we’re all getting busy with Arma II, some exciting stuff is still happening with the original Operation Flashpoint, including the latest release of this remarkable-looking Warhammer 40k mod. The images certainly look impressive, and the modelling is high quality. Digging around in my game collection I’ve discovered that I no longer have a copy of the game, so I can’t drop into this to try it out. Any other OpFlash owners fancy trying it and reporting back in the comments? Let me know what it’s like. Direct download link, 458mb.
Oh yes, will see if I can get ofp working not tried it on vista 64 yet.
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Jim, you’re such a sucker for big stompy robots :)
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You mean there are people out there who aren’t suckers for big stompy robots?
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Holy crap
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That does look impressive. Although surely a chainsaw is slightly less effective when you can headshot someone from 2km away?
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Ah, I remember wanting this many years back, back when this mod was very young (as was I).
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Wow that is impressive looking.
Unfortunately I’m not able to play it…
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I think the modeling might be high quality because they’ve liberated the assests from DOW1
Compare:
http://www.imagebam.com/image/0510af26849765
and
http://img223.imageshack.us/i/relic001669ms.jpg/
Naughty.
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Not if they say thank you in the credits. This is a mod after all, if they’d got bogged down in creating brand new assets for everything it would probably; 1) Look rubbish 2) Not be out for another ten years.
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OFP in hand – will download this now and check it out…
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Yeah, I downloaded and tried this a while ago. It’s got a LOT of content, the island replacements are very good (with new structures and areas etc that fit the 40K setting), and most of the stuff is pretty good quality. It seems to work in multiplayer (LAN at least) and overall seems good.
It has several campaigns with it, but I didn’t get very far through them, due to slight bugs/not very exciting missions.
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JohnArr: Not if they say thank you in the credits. This is a mod after all, if they’d got bogged down in creating brand new assets for everything it would probably; 1) Look rubbish 2) Not be out for another ten years.
What? Even if it’s for non-commercial projects you can’t just go around nicking content from other games without consent. Bollocks.
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Not that I’m saying they did nick the content though. Just that if they did then they are bad, bad boys and should be spanked. And not by someone sexy. By Ann Whitecombe.
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Ah found a thank you in the credits to the DOW1 team, so yea they’ve liberated those models but thanked the team. Still a little naughty.
More importantly, is it any good?
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Looks good fun, but is this legal – didn’t Games Workshop ask the creator(s?) of that Space Hulk remake to C&D ?
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They gonna get shut down then? Op flash is on gog for $10, i’d love it if it actually fits in with the brutallity of 40k lore, things like light arms not even scratching marine armour. Indeed its an odd puzzle to balance, weak points? Percentage chance of penetration? Armour ablation?
Ork vs imp would be much more of a natural divergence, orks are inaccurate but tough, imps are weak but more accurate. But, at flashpoint ranges orks would get chewed up without fast transport, remember the red ones go faster.
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fourm goes back to 2008 so I think they would of got a C&D already if they had one coming there way.
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Okay, would LOVE to install the mod but the jack-asses who wrote it saw fit to give bugger all instructions as to how one would actually do this… (sigh)
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Games Workshop are mostly a nice bunch of people, they’re mostly ok with fan-stuff like mods and the like. There do exist other mods of the WH40K universe, which have survived just fine. The reason I figure the Space Hulk one got a C&D is because it was too close to their original game, which could be a potential threat on sales.
But yes, I’ll also have to give a slight thumbs down for the stealing of assets, even though they seem to have put them to good use.
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they’re mostly ok with fan-stuff like mods and the like
*cough* as witnessed with the nuch acclaimed fan project <a Damnatus
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I´d like to correct the link, but RPS wont let me… http://www.damantus.com
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*me crawles back into hole* http://www.damnatus.com
at last… ;)
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I remember, vaguely, the warhammer 40k mod from long ago, I thought it had died out.
With a little bit of work this could probably be ported to Arma2 =)
Well… not a little work… a lot… but still not as much as, say, half-life to half-life 2 =)
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How well does the OPF engine scale? I recently re-installed Messiah, and my Radeon 3870 couldn’t handle the ‘high’ settings at my desktop resolution. When you consider that the game allowed you to choose between Direct3D and Glide rendering paths, that’s pretty depressing.
The one impressive thing was the resolution bit- it knew how to handle my 16:10 monitor and included a bunch of resolutions in the options menu with the right aspect ratio.
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Howard put the folder into the main folder of your ofp install then do what they say to do to the shourtcut.
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nrly forgot also check the folder names and one will say to move some files.
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All this mecha makes me wish for a new MechWarrior game to appear, or a mod even: http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/ :)
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@Alex. I’d never heard of Damnatus before, but it looks pretty cool and incredibly impressive considering the budget.
The BBC article that the site links to is an interesting read. It seems to boil down to German copyright law not allowing the creators of the film to hand the rights to GW, but if GW allow the film to be released, they would lose the rights to the 40k IP.
It’s all a bit screwed up, really.
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@psyk
Cheers; will do.
@alex
Try “not at all” for the answer to you question of scaling. Turning everything up to its highest settings (excluding view distance as that is just a joke) will give you the worlds most ugly slide-show. While I loved the hell out of OFP the engine is a total pig
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Firstly, that looks amazing!
Secondly, Regarding the copyright issue, im not convinced there is a problem with it… I remember with Counterstike for a long time they used real gun names for there weapons, untill they went retail and started charging at which point they needed to rename the weapons.
Although the “its not charged for” defence isnt the end all, its a major part, the other part would be if its harming any of there products with this one, as they dont have a FPS type game, I cant see that being the case.
2 cents out.
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Let’s just hope they get away with it. Given that they didn’t try to pass the models off as their own work, profit from them, or undercut the original creators, I don’t think they’ve done anything morally wrong. If they get shut down they get shut down, but I don’t think there’s any need to pre-emptively judge them on it.
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Copyright issues are never a problem untill the copyright holder puts on thier shouting pants, which I think is unlikely,
However if those pants were to come out, these modders could in theory be in serious trouble for distrubuting art assets owned by relic.
(I only thought the whole issue was worth a mention because the hivemind thought the team had created thier own assets)
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When you say ‘serious trouble’, do you mean something beyond being forced to shut down their mod? (Genuinely curious, not trying to make some sort of smart-arsed point — I always find it hard to convey tone of voice when asking questions in text!)
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STOLE YOUR AZZETS LOL K THX BYE
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Nice. One good reason to reinstall my OpF.
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Someone needs to mod this to add a Benjamin Briggs model.
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MD – Most mods get shutdown for use of trademarks or for infringing on someones intellectual property.
In this particular case they’re also distrubuting copyrighted material belonging to relic, which I beleive they could get taken to court over. Entirely unlikely, but possible.
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Games Workshop is well known for having a unique and distinctive intellectual property in regards to its creations. When imitators of their products crop up, GW has a fairly watertight case against them because of GW’s recognisable brand. I’d want to defend that sort of IP to the death. The line between ‘fanwork’ and ‘IP infringement’ is fraught with all sorts of things like this.
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Ah thanks, that makes sense.
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(Last comment was @NikRichards, sorry for the double post but I can’t edit)
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Its not a new mod though so wouldn’t it of already happened? or have the borrowed assets been added recently?
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@psyk
I doubt it they were added recently. DoW1 is a fairly old series by now, so chances are they were utilised early on.
I agree, though. I get the feeling GW would’ve shut them down by now if they felt like it.
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Yeah, Damnatus literally had to be shut down or GW would have acquired some fairly hefty legal problems, and how many companies apologize for protecting their IP rights? So to be honest GW is pretty reasonable about derivative works, I mean look at Warcraft and Starcraft (bud-a-boom-cha!).
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Tjeez, only 1 person actually tried it(wilson)? And only he only played an previous version.
I hope someone on rps can properly review it.
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Just gave this mod a good hour in court…sheesh, it was hard work, though mostly due to having to suffer OFPs eye-wateringly bad graphics.
A lot of what they have done seems good at first until , as discussed above, they nicked all the damned models and when you realise that there are only 2 missions I have to wonder what this team were doing for 18 months?
While it is fun to see that assets running about in a FPS game there is nothing really good of which to speak. The design decisions go against the 40K cannon and being made to feel staggeringly underpowered and vulnerable when playing a Space Marine is just daft.
Nice idea but a) it should have been done by people who understand the 40K universe better and b) it should have been done in pretty much ANY engine bar OFP.
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i dont think it’ll be GW that chase these lot down, but Relic. Stealing models from another game is NOT a good call, regardless of whether its free or not.
Unless of course by some chance they’ve already asked and been approved.
Regarding GW and fan stuff, they do seem to be quite nice about it. It depends on the license I think. Space Hulk is a particularly tricky one as I think EA still own the rights to this (even though they sit on it and do nothing with it)
Im currently planning my own space hulk/Laser squad homebrew game and i’ll be avoiding using the 40k universe completely!
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Limbo of the Lost 40K: The Mod
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Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who’s not interested in robots.
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humm…?
Distributing stuff from company A in game of company B is much like a big NO NO in modding. So the risk of getting C&D is high.
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@kafka7: I don’t like robots either. Slow and a easy prey, a big target for missiles, or even dumb bombs. I think a hovertank is much more usefull. I doubt a robot can walk over anything, much like a tank can drive trougth stuff (like a house wall, or a bus). A hovertank (as in sci-fi) can ‘fly’ over anything.
Also, a hovertank can strafe, that is not much, compared to the speed a proyectile. But on urban warzones can mark the difference. IMHO.
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Can we move on from being internet lawyers on the subject? It’s between the mod makers and affected legal entities to think about that stuff. We just play the game that comes.
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This reminds me, why did gog.com stop selling OFP?
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Did anyone get to the bottom of why Codemasters are pulling their GOG releases one by one?
Was it really because they stood to make more money over Steam or something else?
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Games Workshop are mostly a nice bunch of people, they’re mostly ok with fan-stuff like mods and the like.
Really… this is a company that yells at ebay and webstores to remove IMAGES of their products because of copyright infringement.
This mod will get Fox’d soon enough.
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GW are generally harsh on fan made products. Sometimes you’d think they had some sort of problem with people trying to raise enthusiasm for the brand.
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@Howard: There’s a big chasm between 40k tabletop rules and 40k fluff. In the fluff a Space Marine is hugely unstoppable, in the TT they’re easily killed.
DOW was closest to TT I think, so this mod is probably the same way.
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I applaud the effort, but I think I’ll just stick to DoW. There’s a lot of really good mods for that one too.
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For those of you complaining you don’t like robots or mecha I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Those pictured are not robots OR mecha they’re more of an exo-skeleton for the soul of fallen space marines that can no longer carry on the battle in their origonal bodies.
I know in the picutre there is little context but they’re not big enough to be considered mecha. Dreadnaughts are technically considered armored sarcophagus. The space marines body is still in there some place controlling the thing ;)
BTW There are no chainsaws they’re chainswords and they are useful in close combat which does happen from time to time. Yes you can head shot someone from a long ways away but when there are half a million orks running at you , you can only head shot so many. Even with a bolter that can fire mini missles extremly fast some of them are going to make it into close combat with their choppas and then you’re going to wish you had that chain sword or that power fist to defend yourself with ;)
I remember a pretty good mod for Tribes way back that recreated a battle between Space Marines and Eldar, it was pretty neat.
Ah and one last thing there actually is a Warhammer 40K FPS it’s called Firewarrior however you’re a Tau so this may not bother games workshop at all.
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GamesWorkshop will absolutely shut this down. It’s been posted on a major game blog, I give it a month at most.
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It’s been posted on a major game blog…
Which one?
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This one Joshua, This one LOL
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Believe that was sarcasm.
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ZOMG! I’m all over this. It’s as good an excuse as any to reinstall Flashpoint.
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I don’t think so Dorian
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@kafka7: Yes. You are. Doesn’t that make you feel lonely?
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anyone get a really cool Vietnam war vibe from this picture?
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Are gamesworshop really that anal about these types of things?
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What the heck are those, Krut warriors?
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I can’t believe a post about a WH40K mod has generated such a worthless array of comments. You guys are useless.
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Sorry breaker, we’ll try harder next time.
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Close, Serondal, they are Kroot warriors. The Kroot are a mercenary race from the planet Pech mostly aligned with the Tau Empire. They are powerful melee fighters with guns and oh, they ritually eat their enemies.
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I think im just going to pretend this is a sequel to fire warrior so i can die happy.
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Mod for ofp just as arma 2 comes out what do you want from these people.
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Actually I think I know where my OPF disc is… I might try this one out.
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GamesWorkshop will absolutely shut this down. It’s been posted on a major game blog, I give it a month at most.
Don’t be so sure. There ARE 40K Mods out there that have survived for a very long time (http://www.rivalspecies.com). It depends on how the Mod interacts with GW, what licenses GW has granted to 3rd parties (for ecample an FPS in a GW setting?), what these 3rd parties demand etc.
I think its most likely that they’ll get in trouble with Relic/THQ, since game companies (and publishers!) rarely grant the use of their copyrighted material to mods based on different games…
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They won’t shut it down if it keeps with the universe etc.. like the above poster said, it’s the use of DoW art assets that’ll get them into trouble.
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interestingly on a copyright/ GW/Blizzard note, the reason warcraft and starcraft look so similar to their GW couterparts was because GW orginally was involved but towards the end of production removed all their branding. so blizzard removed all GW references and shipped the game.
all these years later i bet the blokes at GW are still fuming about that decision…
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Not sure this has been answered yet and the site is down; does this require the OFP expansions or just the original game?
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@ Xune,
I believe it requires resistance v 1.96
When you look at all the content for the WH40k mod in the mission editor, it is really impressive. Combine it with the super realistic FFUR ’85 mod and some other addon packs (like lost brothers, stargate, American civil war, etc.), you can get some really interesting match ups.
Go to http://www.ofp.info for a bunch of new levels and addons.
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yeah it uses the resistance shortcut to start the game.
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Relic gave the mod makers permission to use DOW art assets.
Most of the work was in fitting the models to the OFP animation system, scaling up/down so that proportions of men to vehicles were more accurate, scipting so that things like bayonets and jump packs work and making three whole campaigns (not missions, campaigns).
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