Half-Life: Blue Shift?

No
Yes. Your turn.

("Half-Life: Blue Shift" is not the same as "Half-Life" nor is it a Half-Life mod, it is a stand alone expansion.)

Alright here's another one, should be easy.

Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess

I see no difference. Expansion is a modification to the core game and as such is a mod. Not that my answer should be accepted (It shouldn't) but still

That's like saying that all games which share an engine are basically the same game.

No it's not. You must have missed word "mod" in my statement.

Expansions and Mods are rather different entities. Counter-Strike was a mod. Blue Shift was an expansion.

Expansions had more in common with DLC actually, though they were far larger. In olden terms, Fallout New Vegas would be considered a stand-alone expansion, for example.

No it wouldn't. Not by any margin. Doom 2 was far, far more a standalone expansion than New Vegas. Yet it was, and still is, considered a game in its own right. In fact I don't remember seeing anything like as many standalone expansions as you see now.

Well it is somewhat up to the developers / publishers to decide what their game is considered to be. Notice that New Vegas was not called Fallout 4!

I'm pretty sure Crusader: No Regret was considered to be standalone expansion. And is New Vegas more different from Fallout 3 than Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark are from the base Neverwinter Nights OC?

Yes. It has a good story for one, and it is set in the setting of the original 2 Fallout and is a continuation of the story of the second one. It is actually the true Fallout 3.
Also changes in the gameplay.

Yeah, like Vice City and San Andreas were to GTA3, oh and the original GTA had that London 1969 thing too...
Or "Kult: The Temple of Flying Saucers"
as some will know it

New Vegas was so called because it wasn't to have any impact on where Bethesda wanted to take the series. It was deliberately distanced from the series, despite being a lot closer to it as a result. Calling it Fallout 4 would have meant it was where Bethesda wanted to take the series next. That was never the case. Obsidian were given relatively free reign.

You're somewhat closer on No Regret. It was viewed by the developer as Crusader 1.5. The lack of new content and gameplay options stopped them from calling it Crusader 2. But it wasn't considered a standalone expansion. It was a full game. Just not a full sequel. Basically more of the same.

Perhaps these days it would be called a standalone expansion. But it's a relatively new thing. Back then sequels that recycled content from the first game were the rule, rather than the exception to it.

Correct.
Your turn.


Oh and New Vegas wasn't a stand-alone expansion.
Like the description already says a stand-alone expansion takes the original game and expands on it a bit, but includes the necessary files from the original as well.
Take 'The Ballad of Gay Tony' for example, it expands on the original GTA4 by adding a story to the original game. But it also includes the entire original engine and city and such so you don't need a copy of the original GTA4 even though it takes place in the same city.
You might call New Vegas a 'Total Conversion mod'.. but I wouldn't since they only used a modified version of the engine and it takes place in the same universe.
That would be kind of like calling Half-Life a Quake mod or stand-alone expansion (slightly more extreme example).

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