Half-Life and Portal series, general discussion (v6) - Games

[QUOTE=halflife_123;46974407]"21 new posts" Here I was hoping for something interesting :v: While I'm here I might as well ask, does HL2 run ok now? I know for a while everyone complained because Valve kept tinkering with it and broke some stuff but that seemed like a long time ago now.[/QUOTE] i would really, really like this to be the case since i'm nearing the end of HL1

[QUOTE=Slimmy;46974430]i would really, really like this to be the case since i'm nearing the end of HL1[/QUOTE] HL2 runs perfectly fine and there are no major bugs

I recently did a complete play through of HL2 and it was perfectly fine.

[QUOTE=NixNax123;46974548]HL2 runs perfectly fine and there are no major bugs[/QUOTE] There is this black train bug that I encountered the first time I played it. After many hours of trial and errors, turning down the settings to minimal seems to fix it.

I'm playing through Half Life 2 again, and the only bugs I've found are little annoying things I've picked up by playing around within the engine for 5 years now. Like how sometimes if you crouch jump while standing on a prop it'll screw up and you won't gain to much height. Or how you can hold a prop in front of a hostile npc and they won't shoot at you. Nothing major at all and you won't even be able to notice them on your own really. I'm going to be really upset if Valve chooses the sensible option for their next game and uses static props for things like bottles and takeout boxes like in Portal 2, because the glitchiness of having so many physics props and the effort that goes into making them is a good trade off for the game being more charming and dynamic.

jesus christ [I]we mentioned the original xbox version[/I] see what waiting does to us, Valve?

[QUOTE=TheTrainRider;46975234]I'm playing through Half Life 2 again, and the only bugs I've found are little annoying things I've picked up by playing around within the engine for 5 years now. Like how sometimes if you crouch jump while standing on a prop it'll screw up and you won't gain to much height. Or how you can hold a prop in front of a hostile npc and they won't shoot at you. Nothing major at all and you won't even be able to notice them on your own really. I'm going to be really upset if Valve chooses the sensible option for their next game and uses static props for things like bottles and takeout boxes like in Portal 2, because the glitchiness of having so many physics props and the effort that goes into making them is a good trade off for the game being more charming and dynamic.[/QUOTE] I thought they fixed the bug of NPCs not shooting at you when holding up a prop quite a while back? That was in the release version iirc. EDIT: I just tested it, and they are correctly shooting.

-snip- someone else made my point

[QUOTE=halflife_123;46974407]"21 new posts" Here I was hoping for something interesting :v: While I'm here I might as well ask, does HL2 run ok now? I know for a while everyone complained because Valve kept tinkering with it and broke some stuff but that seemed like a long time ago now.[/QUOTE] they got a few things, like the razor trains, and breen's scripted sequences the rest of nitpicks is completely out of their grasp though and it's probably because the people who made hl2 happen in 2004 aren't involved anymore so the current responsibles don't even know how the old engine worked sometimes i play dark messiah or sin emergence and can appreciate the benefit of no updates.

Y'all forget that the game was [I]fucking leaked[/I] in 2003, and basically [B]completely remade[/B] in the span of a year. Pretty sure they had to rush things.

No, it wasn't. Most of what the retail was going to be was either finalized or in the process of being finalized, and they were working on finally putting everything together. Hell, the retail version of the Terminal Plaza was already being made when the leak happened. All the stuff you see in RTB and the WC Mappack was shit that got cut during development, mainly during 2002.

There is the common misconception that HL2 took 6 years to make, but a good chunk of that time was spent developing Source.

[QUOTE=ThatoneJeff;46977679]There is the common misconception that HL2 took 6 years to make, but a good chunk of that time was spent developing Source.[/QUOTE] and the same will be with HL3, Most of it's dev time will actually be developing source 2.

I hate the theory Half-Life was all a dream. Seems like it'd just be a cop-out, when the only material is a texture a handful of people read and a map a handful of people played. Also if the resonance cascade never happened, what was preventing the people who disappeared into Aperture Science from ever receiving concern? Or did Portal just not happen now either?

[QUOTE=artDecor;46978720]I hate the theory Half-Life was all a dream. Seems like it'd just be a cop-out, when the only material is a texture a handful of people read and a map a handful of people played. Also if the resonance cascade never happened, what was preventing the people who disappeared into Aperture Science from ever receiving concern? Or did Portal just not happen now either?[/QUOTE] I suppose the one who originally came up that theory with never had a dream before.

Source 2 from what I have seen will allow the developers to make HL3 very very fast and very detailed with their ability. Say, if it took them about a month to make a map, I'd give them a week or two to make one. That's assuming they worked 5 days a week, 8/9 hours a day doing nothing but working on the map (barring their work breaks) This is based on Source 2 having been finished and then they begin work on mapping. They realistically will probably go out texture hunting IRL (you can tell a lot of textures if not most of them in HL2-EP1-EP2 have been taken with a camera and edited), creating models, etc and then work on the basic maps and go from there. Maps will realistcally probably be one of the last things they start to make, unless they make a map for a specific purpose and have to model around the design of the map. Which is probably going to happen. I'd go as far as to say that maps in HL3 will probably be worth about 6 EP2 maps. It will be huge. I am just simply so excited for the new engine. I used to just "want" HL3, now I want Source 2. I want GMod on Source 2. I probably couldn't play another sandbox game seriously if that happens, because it would simply be the best thing ever.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;46979433]Source 2 from what I have seen will allow the developers to make HL3 very very fast and very detailed with their ability. Say, if it took them about a month to make a map, I'd give them a week or two to make one. That's assuming they worked 5 days a week, 8/9 hours a day doing nothing but working on the map (barring their work breaks)[/QUOTE] Would you mind providing a source for your theories? I may only have two half-assed maps on the workshop, but I can tell you from my mounds of failed projects that the sheer act of designing a map can take ages. There's all sorts of concerns like navigation, scripted sequences, color theory, texturing, sound design, playtesting, and a whole load of other stuff that extents well beyond any individual engine. I'd go as far to say that only old-school engines like Build engine and the earlier id tech's could pump out engines in a week, but that's because they were A) Designed to do that, and B) Were simplistic enough that map construction wasn't as bloated as it is today. That being said you might correct, I have no industry experience, but I will say that that Valve, even in Portal 2, showed a design philosophy of "It'll be done when it's done", meaning they'll take as along as they want. Also I literally discovered my mistake 10 minutes after posting about using props to block the NPC's vision when I opened Half Life 2. Too late to snip.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;46979433] Source 2 from what I have seen will allow the developers to make HL3 very very fast and very detailed with their ability. [/QUOTE] I highly doubt that. There can't be anything like a PeTI for HL3. For Portal 2 VALVe had this really crappy idea to implement something called func_instances to simplify the process of creating Test Chambers. This just resulted in overlapping models and objects floating in the air most of the time. You can't pre-create stuff for later usage, level design is too dynamic for this idea. [I]"Do it from scratch or fuck off"[/I] Style

[QUOTE=LambdaCore 21;46980280]I highly doubt that. There can't be anything like a PeTI for HL3. For Portal 2 VALVe had this really crappy idea to implement something called func_instances to simplify the process of creating Test Chambers. This just resulted in overlapping models and objects floating in the air most of the time. You can't pre-create stuff for later usage, level design is too dynamic for this idea. [I]"Do it from scratch or fuck off"[/I] Style[/QUOTE] What does this have to do with anything? How are the Portal 2 maps (based on Source, and by extension the archaic bsp format) even relevant? When was pre-creating parts of levels even mentioned? Gabe has said that the primary goal of Source 2 was to simplify content creation. The newer tools are probably WYSIWYG, which would vastly speed up map creation, and there's probably a whole bunch of improved tools, like brushes to automatically place down props in an area and so on.

God forbid sentient AI exists in the world of giant armored spider testicles and government funded interdimensional travel.

I meant to say/show that, while we can make maps in X amount of time, creating a [b]map[/b], not it's textures, models, and whatnot, will probably take half the time. This is just assuming they had to work with the same textures and models from scratch and had to create a map based on a design. It would probably be done very quickly, obviously if they were professional they would go over it again and again to refine it. That might take up time to the original time it took to make the map in the original engine, but then the people who made that map in the original engine have to do the same. Might take as long, might not. Point being, Source 2 upon completion will result in HL3 much quicker, we just don't know when SRC2 will get released. I just hope HL3 is the flagship game for Source 3.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;46981562]I just hope HL3 is the flagship game for Source 3.[/QUOTE] Dota 2 is Source 2's first game, [I]supposedly[/I] this year. I don't think it's going to be a ground breaking showcase of the new engine but it shows Valve is doing things. Honestly with the expectations that the next Half Life has, if I were ValveI would want to try the new engine on a few other things first before I put it to what people really want.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;46981562]I meant to say/show that, while we can make maps in X amount of time, creating a [b]map[/b], not it's textures, models, and whatnot, will probably take half the time. This is just assuming they had to work with the same textures and models from scratch and had to create a map based on a design. It would probably be done very quickly, obviously if they were professional they would go over it again and again to refine it. That might take up time to the original time it took to make the map in the original engine, but then the people who made that map in the original engine have to do the same. Might take as long, might not. Point being, Source 2 upon completion will result in HL3 much quicker, we just don't know when SRC2 will get released. I just hope HL3 is the flagship game for Source 3.[/QUOTE] I agree, but only a half-agree. While Source 2 will undoubtably allow content to be created much faster, that doesn't mean that HL3's development time would be short - indeed, the (probably) large scope and scale of HL3 would almost definitely mean it'd still take a long time, even if content is being produced more efficiently than previously. If you can make maps twice as fast, but the average size increase of your maps is 4x, then you'd still take twice as long as before to make a map!

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;46983780]Dota 2 is Source 2's first game, [I]supposedly[/I] this year. I don't think it's going to be a ground breaking showcase of the new engine but it shows Valve is doing things. Honestly with the expectations that the next Half Life has, if I were ValveI would want to try the new engine on a few other things first before I put it to what people really want.[/QUOTE] i have a feeling HL3 would be released with something huge, like HL2 (and the source engine, they even went as far as to make HL1 Source) with steam and episode 2 with the orange box.

[QUOTE=Slimmy;46983977]i have a feeling HL3 would be released with something huge, like HL2 (and the source engine, they even went as far as to make HL1 Source) with steam and episode 2 with the orange box.[/QUOTE] They've actually been putting all this devtime into getting the helicopter crash scene to look fucking incredible. After that Alyx and Gordon wander in the snow for a while, then get hypothermia and die.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;46981562]I meant to say/show that, while we can make maps in X amount of time, creating a [b]map[/b], not it's textures, models, and whatnot, will probably take half the time. This is just assuming they had to work with the same textures and models from scratch and had to create a map based on a design. It would probably be done very quickly, obviously if they were professional they would go over it again and again to refine it. That might take up time to the original time it took to make the map in the original engine, but then the people who made that map in the original engine have to do the same. Might take as long, might not. Point being, Source 2 upon completion will result in HL3 much quicker, we just don't know when SRC2 will get released. I just hope HL3 is the flagship game for Source 3.[/QUOTE] unless you're talking HL3 in 2030 or something, i don't think it would be on source 3 considering how long they rode out source 1, i bet they're looking to go even longer with source 2 or even the same amount of time. [editline]22nd January 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;46984011]They've actually been putting all this devtime into getting the helicopter crash scene to look fucking incredible. After that Alyx and Gordon wander in the snow for a while, then get hypothermia and die.[/QUOTE] it's actually just a cutscene of gman saying who he is -- the guy who was fucking gordan's mom last night

[QUOTE=Slimmy;46984025] it's actually just a cutscene of gman saying who he is -- the guy who was fucking gordan's mom last night[/QUOTE] It turns out that Half Life is actually representing the escapist imagination of a child scarred by his mother's abusive boyfriend. Gordon is actually hiding in a closet listening to his mother screaming from the blows her boyfriend instills on her imagining himself as the lone survivor of a horrible incident. He then escapes, with his main goal to 'get to the surface', analogous to escaping his traumatizing day to day life. In real life, his mother is sobbing on the floor in the kitchen, and the neighbors call the police, but the boyfriend has pull, and shoos them away. Gordon then images the marines, the people who were supposed to come and help, turn into the enemy, and he has to fight them as well. Gordon continues to dive deeper and deeper into his mental escape, spending as much time as possible exploring the abandoned factories on the edge of town away from home (similar to "On A Rail"), where he manages to cool off for a while. But soon the police catch him after he's found playing hooky from school and charge him with trespassing, as repersented by the grunts literally catching him. Gordon becomes more and more frustrated as he runs into more and more trouble with the police, and increased ne'erdowell-ism leads to more trouble at home, represented by the increased alien and grunt activity, and the equal amounts of mutual aggravation caused by the infighting between the two factions, mirroring the two factions of Gordons Police record and home abuse. At the climax of the story, Gordon has had enough of the trauma at home, and manages to get a hold of the boyfriends revolver, and plans to kill him for ruining his life. In his head, Gordon is the hero, entering Xen and using his might to destroy the evil that hunts him and causes all his problems: the Nihilanth. Gordon shoots at the boyfriend, but the boyfriend is quick, and manages to trick Gordon into killing his mother. The boyfriend had wanted this all along, for the insurance money. With no family to take him the boyfreind offers Gordan a choice, either come with him and continue to be his pawn, or face the horrors of being an orphan alone, just like how Gman manipulated Gordon, and then offered him an ultimatum. Or maybe it's just a fun scifi thriller plot with no deeper meaning what-so-ever. I mean, Half Life 2's dystopian setting [i]totally[/i] isn't an analogy to living in lower class America under the guidance of a neglectful guardian, and Alyx [i]definitively[/i] doesn't symbolize Gordon's sexual awakening at his young age.

Just finished playing through Half Life 2 again. Each time I go through it I'm always shocked at how fun and varied it is, and how Valve were able to make it feel so real and dynamic and lived in. The entire game feels like an adventure. Still my favorite game, even if I get weird looks from the Nintendo crowd when I say that. (I also got every achievement this time around). However, I will say that the people wining about the graphics quality do have some credit. I know I made a big stink about it in the past few pages but Half Life 2 really hasn't aged as well as Half Life 1, which was cartoony enough to still be appealing. That being said, it's more of a case of "Oh jeeze, that's really low poly" or "Oh jeeze, I can see they didn't have the space to animate that prop" and various levels of low texture resolution then any fault in the ascetic. Just a bad aspect of being a game striving for realism in the early 2000's, and it's definitely one of the better looking games of it's time.

[QUOTE=artDecor;46978720]I hate the theory Half-Life was all a dream. Seems like it'd just be a cop-out, when the only material is a texture a handful of people read and a map a handful of people played. Also if the resonance cascade never happened, what was preventing the people who disappeared into Aperture Science from ever receiving concern? Or did Portal just not happen now either?[/QUOTE] Never heard this hypothesis before. Care to explain?

[QUOTE=BLUchameleon;46988234]Never heard this hypothesis before. Care to explain?[/QUOTE] It's based on some sound files and textures from the beta, the sound files are garbled but mention immersion therapy or something. There's a video if it I'll try and find it. [editline]22nd January 2015[/editline] OK I thought there was a video so I'll explain what I remember. In the leak there's an audio file of some people saying Gordon needs to be reimmersed, then there's a part where all these ghost textures and some of them are excerpts from psychology related texts. So some people think that Half Life might all be a dream and Gordon is just crazy or something. I'm still pretty sure there's a video but I can't find it.