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

that'd be fucking awesome

Sometimes I get worried if this thread has a bunch of posts. This, and the Reddit front page, are basically my beacons for any actual HL3 or Source news. "The thread has reached +200 posts! GORDON CALLS FOR AID."

[QUOTE=Pigbear;48628454]minerva is above valve quality level design tbh[/QUOTE] Probably why it got the guy hired at Valve.

Minerva's level design isn't even comparable to Valve's though The level design in Minerva started out with a plan of what the environment would actually look like and then it has gameplay set up inside that. Valve develops their levels with gameplay in mind from the get-go. Seriously, noclip above that one Sandtraps level (you know the one) and it becomes really clear really fast that the environment makes no sense at all from above. Elevations change wildly, some tall rocks are one foot thick, and the whole thing snakes around way more than you think while actually playing it. Honestly, I can respect both, especially because you don't notice any of this weirdness actually playing HL2, but imo minerva's environments feel less gamey to me.

[QUOTE=AtomicSans;48630690]minerva's environments feel less gamey to me.[/QUOTE] What does this even mean

[QUOTE=AtomicSans;48630690]Minerva's level design isn't even comparable to Valve's though The level design in Minerva started out with a plan of what the environment would actually look like and then it has gameplay set up inside that. Valve develops their levels with gameplay in mind from the get-go. Seriously, noclip above that one Sandtraps level (you know the one) and it becomes really clear really fast that the environment makes no sense at all from above. Elevations change wildly, some tall rocks are one foot thick, and the whole thing snakes around way more than you think while actually playing it. Honestly, I can respect both, especially because you don't notice any of this weirdness actually playing HL2, but imo minerva's environments feel less gamey to me.[/QUOTE] best is a balance between both

This discussion on mods has gotten me thinking of all the promising mods that died during development or all the teams/individuals that made literally one good mod then just vanished from the face of the earth.

[QUOTE=Anderan;48630786]This discussion on mods has gotten me thinking of all the promising mods that died during development or all the teams/individuals that made literally one good mod then just vanished from the face of the earth.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't be surprised if most of those were free time projects while studying at an uni, and somewhere in the middle people either drop out or go "nah, fuck gamedev".

[QUOTE=aurum481;48630942]I wouldn't be surprised if most of those were free time projects while studying at an uni, and somewhere in the middle people either drop out or go "nah, fuck gamedev".[/QUOTE] I just kinda wish a few more of them would at least drop a notice saying "yea this mod is dead". It's understandable if life gets in the way or shit otherwise just happens, but it would be nice.

Or at least if you're a one man band or a three man band drop some of those textures and assets under Creative Commons so others can utilize them. [img]http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/13/12880/thumb_620x2000/02big.jpg[/img] [url]http://www.moddb.com/mods/zeitgeist[/url] I can understand why you wouldn't do this if you went retail, because then you're actually moving money around and licensing and shit, but if the mod is dead and you've gone off to do other things then giving back to the community would be nice. [sp] said the guy who has never made anything worth releasing[/sp]

[QUOTE=AtomicSans;48630690]Minerva's level design isn't even comparable to Valve's though The level design in Minerva started out with a plan of what the environment would actually look like and then it has gameplay set up inside that. Valve develops their levels with gameplay in mind from the get-go. Seriously, noclip above that one Sandtraps level (you know the one) and it becomes really clear really fast that the environment makes no sense at all from above. Elevations change wildly, some tall rocks are one foot thick, and the whole thing snakes around way more than you think while actually playing it. Honestly, I can respect both, especially because you don't notice any of this weirdness actually playing HL2, but imo minerva's environments feel less gamey to me.[/QUOTE] I like the semi-sandbox feel of minerva tho it's not like anything in any half-life game I wouldn't call it better or worse just different and refreshing

So does anyone know what happened to Estranged? I hope Act II is still being worked on.

So the people behind the patches for 007: Nightfire are porting it to source [url]http://nightfiresource.com/[/url]

[QUOTE=mralexs;48634370]So the people behind the patches for 007: Nightfire are porting it to source [url]http://nightfiresource.com/[/url][/QUOTE] What's with James Bond being constantly ported to the source engine. First Golden Eye:Source and now this.

[QUOTE=TheTrainRider;48634393]What's with James Bond being constantly ported to the source engine. First Golden Eye:Source and now this.[/QUOTE] Considering Nightfire was on GoldSource it kinda makes sense

[QUOTE=mralexs;48634404]Considering Nightfire was on GoldSource it kinda makes sense[/QUOTE] PC version was on a branch, I don't think the console versions were though. Xbox version is also superior so rip, nightfire was a wonderful game so I don't mind

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;48634518]PC version was on a branch, I don't think the console versions were though. Xbox version is also superior so rip, nightfire was a wonderful game so I don't mind[/QUOTE] I heard the Xbox version was utter crap compared to the Gamecube version

RIP rogue threat

I just tried Mission Impossible and found out that aside from the edited gameinfo.txt, I also needed all the materials, models, particles, scenes, sounds, etc from HL2 and Episodes otherwise it would have floating flashing lines in the sky, missing textures/models/particles/sounds, motion blur covering the screen in a missing texture, and no animations for certain NPCs and NPCs not appearing altogether. It got up to the point where I couldn't even play anymore, because of the missing textures blocking everything. [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578617799/1D63B63DBEBC9CCB8F6E4DB9FEDF840A0631C33E/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618076/A77FEF9550809145417F1F28F67BFF1C6A800FF4/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618235/2F607EADFBE37CF2260CF8BFA54AD74AF548C551/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618474/EAAA1711E67C964660420E6285B340A904B76FAA/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618760/AE0CFD63350FC141FFB63FE039A0A48D0F6B4A05/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578619371/6A6F8AEDD56B0D4DA180418DDDF92F286852C04C/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578619628/2657DD7D1182EC7721A2E78C167E32BD2E94D287/[/t]

You can thank the Steampipe update for breaking the mounting content of other games.

what did steampipe even give us that was good

[QUOTE=TheRealRudy;48637986]Valve games in the steam common folder? :v:[/QUOTE] how useful they could've atleast made it so old source mods trying to mount those games would get redirected

[QUOTE=Pigbear;48637958]what did steampipe even give us that was good[/QUOTE] Faster updating and addon support?

[QUOTE=DoktorAkcel;48638064]Faster updating and addon support?[/QUOTE] addon support was a thing before wasn't it and faster updating? the games are so old the latest notable update WAS steampipe

[QUOTE=Pigbear;48638111]addon support was a thing before wasn't it and faster updating? the games are so old the latest notable update WAS steampipe[/QUOTE] Addon support before was replacing game files, and if addon was broken - well, good luck with file validation. And faster updaing is more for compatible mods + SteamVR for these games.

Steam VR was the only real addition. All the rest of "improvements" were shadowed by the way it was done the update (why in the name of god they got rid of Source SDK, but then they never added a replacement for the launcher, breaking several tools is something that I don't understand yet).

[QUOTE=Kaleidescoop;48636608]I just tried Mission Impossible and found out that aside from the edited gameinfo.txt, I also needed all the materials, models, particles, scenes, sounds, etc from HL2 and Episodes otherwise it would have floating flashing lines in the sky, missing textures/models/particles/sounds, motion blur covering the screen in a missing texture, and no animations for certain NPCs and NPCs not appearing altogether. It got up to the point where I couldn't even play anymore, because of the missing textures blocking everything. [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578617799/1D63B63DBEBC9CCB8F6E4DB9FEDF840A0631C33E/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618076/A77FEF9550809145417F1F28F67BFF1C6A800FF4/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618235/2F607EADFBE37CF2260CF8BFA54AD74AF548C551/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618474/EAAA1711E67C964660420E6285B340A904B76FAA/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578618760/AE0CFD63350FC141FFB63FE039A0A48D0F6B4A05/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578619371/6A6F8AEDD56B0D4DA180418DDDF92F286852C04C/[/t] [t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/433824928578619628/2657DD7D1182EC7721A2E78C167E32BD2E94D287/[/t][/QUOTE] You can fux that by dumping the materials from the ep2 GCF into the mod's folder (or something like that, I used that trick to fix human error a while back)

[QUOTE=Pigbear;48637958]what did steampipe even give us that was good[/QUOTE] Breen not standing up in the teleport sequence at the beginning for a year, ruining this awesome cutscene for many new players.

More gameplay wise the train race in Highway 17 is nigh impossible to beat the usual way. Nowadays you need to coax the train out and then backpedal into a safe spot. The jeep was given the muscle car's mechanics which broke that particular part.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;48639388]More gameplay wise the train race in Highway 17 is nigh impossible to beat the usual way. Nowadays you need to coax the train out and then backpedal into a safe spot. The jeep was given the muscle car's mechanics which broke that particular part.[/QUOTE] you hold shift