I've been doing a simultaneous run of Half-life and Half-life

I think one reason Half-Life has had such a long life is that Valve released the level design tools used to make the game. The community was a constant source of awesome maps, mods, and challenge. Same thing for other games like StarCraft. I don't understand how companies haven't understood this (Mario Maker and Mega Man editors are pathetic attempts at this).

Miss me some rocket-crowbar.

>>2764356
oh, undoubtedly. accessible modding tools are important for any single player game's lifespan.
look at doom or thief.

>>2764389
I think most companies feel by limiting the lifespans you'll have to buy their sequel for more and new content.

>>2764340
it was a good game to use at LAN parties before Steam came about.
You could just copy the directory to another computer and use a CD key of thirteen 3's to allow you to play multiplayer in HL or any other mod.

>>2764395
makes sense to me.
why let gamers make their own content when you can sell them half-assed content?

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As I'm playing though half-life source I'm really enjoying the small things like improved lighting and adjusted skins and textures here and there, plus water, better pathing for npcs.

but at the same time it's a buggy piece of shit, a lot of weapons are missing reload sounds or the sounds are desynced and a lot of the world sounds are missing.

I'm using the HD skin pack for both and Source's weapons look actually pretty good.


Also, I've always wondered with the HD skins were hitboxes displaced or something? Because I've found it extremely difficult to hit targets with the shotgun. Headcrabs and soldiers especially. Which is bizarre because I have no such problem with HD models turned off.

>>2764401
dlc is just an extension of that philosophy. Why would they give you a map editor if they can just charge you more for new levels, maps, etc a few months down the line.

>>2764406
how do you feel about expansions? like OpFor and BS?

Someone is going to host an official /vr/ Sven Coop server, right?

I can appreciate how half-life actually gives you ammo for your revolver and crossbow unlike hl2

>>2764472
I hope so.

>>2764356
I used to wonder why this was, as my favorite games were often mods, or had modding capabilities (HL -> TFC, StarCraft -> UMS maps, Warcraft 3 -> UMS maps, Morrowind -> Mods, etc) but then I sadly realized that for every hour I spent on that game not spending money on a new game, the developer was "losing money".

It's simply more economically viable to have a game that ISN'T that deep/long/mod-friendly, because that stuff is free. They'd rather piece and parcel it out for money.

I doubt that it's really what the programmers and designers want, they're mostly gamers and former gamers like us, but I think to stay competitive in the brave new world of AAA titles, and perfectly cinematic but one-playthrough-and-done 30 hour titles, it's a model they're forced to adopt.

The games I had the most fun with, I created the fun myself, instead of having it all drawn out for me. Maybe Ocarina of Time excluded.

Back to the topic at hand though -- SvenCo-Op was awesome. Spent months playing with my brother on our LAN. I liked the indoor creep'n'crawl missions, and the big alien boss missions best.

>>2764435
Opposing Force improved HL multiplayer immensely in my opinion with CTF, etc. It's a shame that it has died out, it was a great deathmatch game, and a great CTF game.

Still not as good at CTF as TFC however. TFC still the greatest CTF ever made IMO.

>>2764406
It's probably a lot of work to include the editor along with dev kit tools info, tutorials, making it more user friendly, etc

>>2765021
The revolver is the coolest gun in the whole series.

Just a shame it didn't get enough ammo anywhere.

>>2765207
It's super obnoxious of valve to give a weapon no ammo drops, but also a super small ammo pool
Good thing this can be changed super easily in hl2.

>>2765168
If you've worked in any form of development for a large company you'll realize they document everything. The tutorials already exist. People can edit using the same software they did. There's no obligation to make it more user friendly or add the level editor into the game itself. A simple upload would suffice and the community for popular games will take over from there.

>>2764340
I would like to ask you, OP, to define what you mean by "Half-Life source"? The actual Half-Life Source or Black Mesa Source?

>>2765120
The standpoint of the publishers are understandable, but I hope they'll realise that the roots of the current gaming trends (namely mobas and online shooters) all goes back to mods or maps. It is quite usual that when you are working on something for years, you will become unable to think outside the box, and that's why it's nice to have a large community who may see the missed opportunities in your work and fill in the holes. Other than that, for some genres, like strategies, it's quite mandatory to have at least a map editor in my opinion.

>>2765396
the actual half-life source.

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Post your HL1 mod rankings.

Top Tier:
>Half-Life: Invasion
>Sweet Half-Life
>Someplace Else
>They Hunger
>Heart of Evil

Classic Tier:
>USS Darkstar

>Too different to ignore despite some problems tier:
Point of View

>No, it kind of sucks, the mapping is sub-par and it's a boring escort mission tier:
Azure Sheep

>>2765474
a lot of people think highly of They Hunger but I've never found it to be that great.

>>2765483
It's mostly Part 2 that I enjoy replaying, and I will readily admit there is nostalgia involved. When I first played it I was like, "It's kinda like Resident Evil... but an FPS!" which seemed novel, but of course there's nothing rare about zombie FPSes today.

>>2765474
Who's ripping off whom?

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>>2765474
Are we allow to vouch for our own mod?

>original "The ship"
>Science and industry
>the specialists

i miss those mods

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>tfw learning Gabe Newell himself worked on the Doom95 Windows sourceport
I shit you not, I actually liked that one when I was younger

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>>2765513
The Matrix dojo melee and lobby firefights were done infinitely better in The Specialists than any Matrix licensed videogame.

>>2765515
Is that Samuel L. Glover?

>>2765474
I got the sense that Akira influenced HL2 a lot as well.

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Decay is pretty interesting, but impossible if you don't have 2 people.

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>>2764356
FRUA and Neverwinter Nights lived on this as well.

Maybe companies understand it, but can't give up the dream of monopolizing content for their platform.

>>2765586
>Akira influenced HL2
No it doesent. Movie like: thx 1138, 1984 and war of the worlds did that.

>>2765594
There's a mod where you can play as 1 player and swap between characters. There's a few parts where you have to be careful with your other character, especially the final battle, but I managed to beat it.

So have you played every official HL1 game?
>Half-life
>Opposing Force
>Blue Shift
>Decay
>Uplink

>>2765620
I've tried to do it solo, but I got stuck on the part with the two pipes and the flying enemies. You have to be damn good to beat it.

>>2765626

I bought the first three on CD rom.

It's a shame no one plays Opposing Force death match anymore. It was my favorite Half Life multiplayer... used to play on a 33.6 dialup, with a 200 ping. I used to fucking own.

Puffman, I beat you.

>>2765594
>>2765620
>>2765650
http://decay.half-lifecreations.com/

Just play it with a buddy on PC, if you aren't already

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> tfw you will never have that amazing feel of exploring Black Mesa for the first time
NEVER EVER ;-;

>>2765687
meh

>>2765651
Damned shame. I agree.
>bunny hopping around with the sniper rifle
>no-scoping people all day long
>planting laser trip mines through all the tunnels in the rollercoaster park level
>sniping people from miles away on the xendance level

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>>2764395
>>2764401
>>2764406
>>2765120
I would argue it's very short sighted of companies to think like this. What's more important to the long term success of a company: quarterly earnings or a rabid fanbase? If you play the long game, it has to be the latter. Let me ask you guys this, do you ever catch yourself thinking you can't wait until the next Sony game comes out? How about the next Valve, Blizzard, id game? If you strictly look at maximizing profits you get squishy shit like what Squenix pushes out now; safe rehashes that will undoubtedly earn money, but will be ultimately forgettable and wither the fanbase (I haven't played a FF since X).

Getting people to form a bond with a company and its games should never be overlooked.

I didn't argue this well, but I truly think it does nothing but help the company out by distributing tools needed to customize games.

>>2765168
No need to put any extra effort into releasing design tools. They come with no warranty at all, just the game itself. The community will figure shit out and write tutorials if none exist.

>>2765474
>*jizzes pants*

>>2765794
I completely agree about your argument. I'd never considered that, but I do eagerly await the release of those companies' titles (maybe less so Blizzard these days...)

>>2765803
I despise blizzard. The games they make are a disease. Don't get me wrong. I was a rabid WoW gamer up until about 2008. I was tanking in the top raiding guilds always clearing content first. I forget the specific chat query but I checked my total time played one day. It came out to 328 days (granted most of that was chatting with guild members at work. I lived logged in). After seeing that number I apologized to the guild, left, and never looked back. I miss some of the online friends I had. We played many other games together but they all inevitably dropped me for my choice. After a few solid months of depression I finally became a person again. I started to exercise and focus on real life friends and family. I'll never go back or play another blizzard title. I'm certain this isn't true for everyone. I feel my WoW addiction tried to steal my life and soul.

>>2765824
I played WoW for 9 months straight when it first came out, loved it, but then quit. Glad I did, but I do miss it from time to time.

I liked Starcraft / Diablo 1/2 a ton as well. I couldn't get into SC2 or D3.

The games changed but so did I.

I can't blame Blizzard for changing as a company, I'm not the same 11 year old I was then, so why should they be the same company they were then also? Things mature, and, sadly, not always in ways that turn out for the best.

It's best to enjoy things as they are, when they are, and while they are, because you never know when you'll look back and realize how much and how fast things are changing and evolving.

>>2765803
>>2765824
My examples are a little behind the times because I'm like my old games. I chose Blizzard because StarCraft LAN parties on custom maps was the tits back in the day. I put id up there too out of my deep respect for John Carmack (who seems to live this philosophy), but he's no longer at id.

>>2765846
It was mainly about the social aspect for me. I was always on and never much cared about gear. I kinda just fell into a tanking role. It was getting to a point where I felt everyone around me was expecting unreasonable things from me. I didn't play to be their tank slave and get them their next epic or fingers crossed legendary piece. I always made my raids but there was this expectation I should always tank instances for guild members to help them gear. I genuinely felt my time was being taken advantage of by the time I quit. By the end anytime I said no to someone because of time constraints I was always getting shit for it. That or incessant begging. People just cared more about imaginary and soon to be irrelevant gear than they did about hanging out.

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Nihilanth did nothing wrong

>>2764356
Companies do understand this, but most games made in the past 5 or so years are going to be too complex to get much in the way of meaningful user mods

>>2766210
The thumbnail kinda looked like Nihilanth was sporting a cowboy hat.
Now THAT would be an idea to resurrect HL3.

>>2765863
With a LAN party you actually interact with people in person.

>>2765741

Bloody luved Opposing Forces deathmatch.

>>2766229
Wasn't Gunman Chronicles some wacky time traveling space cowboy game? I heard it was shit but maybe Valve will more likely do a sequel to Gunman Chronicles (or Ricochet 2) rather than continue with Half-Life. Oy vey...

>>2765474
Have those top tier games actually aged well? I haven't played anything but USS Darkstar and They Hunger from that list and from my experience they totally blow away the competition in HL SP mods. I loved it how Neil Manke's team made so much original content at least in They Hunger or at least used them quite creatively as in USS Darkstar.

>>2765608
And nothing else?

>>2764405
>I'm using the HD skin pack for both and Source's weapons look actually pretty good.

I personally can't stand the HD weapons. The Beretta has such an annoying, unrealistic, over-the-top recoil effect, and the M16 and shotgun are both so much louder than their original counterparts that they feel more powerful than they actually are.

I think the HD characters look nice, but I don't think it's worth the trade-off.

>>2765021
Well, the crossbow was a lot more powerful in HL2, while the revolver didn't feel as useful overall like it did in the predecessor.

I didn't have much of a problem with it. The game is already easy enough as it is. No need to make it easier with excessive crossbow bolts.

Towards the end, I usually just save what bolts I have for the white elite combine troopers, and I feel that it works adequately in terms of balance.

>>2765687
Idk tbh, I personally enjoyed my subsequent playthroughs more. Maybe it's because I played it long after its release, and had to adjust to its gameplay before seeing the true brilliance of it.

>>2766393
It was a mod gone commercial.

It was okay, one thing that I haven't seen in other games was the configurable rocket launcher

>>2766598
Agree 100%. And I don't really care for the look of the pistol model, either. For people that don't know, you can turn off the HD models using the -nohdmodels launch parameter in Steam.

>>2764340
>Sven

Last time I played that some fat girl admin threatened to ban me because I was having too much fun. Haven't played in years. This was one of the better servers, too (Multiplay UK I believe).

HL1 deathmatch pissed me off. So much could be tweaked with a few edits of an .ini file, it made the game grossly unfair.

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>>2764340
>dedicated to the early half-liives
>be playing vanilla half-life with a friend
>fucking around in the room before the chamber with the two scientists
>jumping around, spamming E
>scientist bugs out and starts walking around while talking
>standing in between him and the retinal scanner
>the scientist grabs gordons shoulders as if it were the scanner and shoves his face into the screen

glorious vanilla half-life

>>2766623
it's an option in the video options now.

>>2766704
Like what? I've never played HL1 deathmatch. Is that how people were able to bunnyhop and stuff?

gl_texturemode, GL_NEAREST or GL_LINEAR?

>>2767873
only faggets use filters, so

>>2764340
>Sven coop

This was my jam. There was just nothing cozier than playing this with bros on a cold winters day, wrapped up in an electric blanket, mowing down row after row of attacking aliums with turrets on that one map.

>>2765396
Black Mesa is shit. Now the devs are charging people to play their stupid piece of shit.

>>2767917

Why should people work to create entertainment for you without being paid?

>>2767920
I'm a communist.

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>>2767925

Oh. It's the slide for you, then.

>>2767920
Cause black Mesa gets rid of all the pacing and exploration of hl1 with an unfinished storyline, awkward va's, and the worst footstep sound imaginable, that took 8 years to finally release which is buggy as fuck. Then they draw up a sfm trailer in 5 mins that attempts awkward humor and some cheap Internet ARG marketing attempts, release it on steam for 20 dollars (early access), and still don't release xen.

But you defend them because they're a small team, right? Meanwhile things like CoF and Stanley parable (mod + full game) get released with higher production value in years less dev time than black mesa.

>>2767948
>gets rid of all the pacing and exploration of hl1
Not enough air vents for you?
>worse footstep sound imaginable
>buggy as fuck
Oh wait you're just doing dumb exaggerations. Different anon here; you're acting dumb. Black Mesa is alright, it's a nice bonus for fans of HL1, and no one is forcing you to pay for it.

>>2767942
Kek.

>>2767953
I was fine up until they started charging for it. When they charge 20 dollars for that game, I'm going to rate it as a 20 dollar game, which is shit. When it was a mod I waited patiently since 2005.

>Oh wait you're just doing dumb exaggerations. Different anon here; you're acting dumb. Black Mesa is alright, it's a nice bonus for fans of HL1, and no one is forcing you to pay for it.

Oh wait you're just sitting there not bringing up any counterpoints, except...vents. Did you even play hl1 past we've got hostiles?

Otherwise you're fine with glitches and shitty production value, because it's "alright"? Fuck if I knew I could release some buggy and unfinished project that almost rivals boyhood in dev time and shittily market it up to people like you and then still receive your money, I should be doing that.

>>2767990
The only way I think of that Black Mesa has less "exploration" than the original HL is how they cut down the air vent section of Office Complex and the severely cut On a Rail. I don't like the OAR cuts, but the OAR Uncut add-on fixes that.

Also, in some places they added a few more areas to poke around, like the expanded offices in the very beginning and the labs in Questionable Ethics.

As for bugs, the only one I remember is the glitched air strike console and maybe a crash or two. It was not a notably buggy release.

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I'm glad that HL:Source runs on a older version of the source, makes it possible to bunny hop.

Also, something annoying that a noticed is that in HL1 on hard, it takes 2 shots from the shotgun to kill a zombie. On HL:S on hard, it takes three for some reason. Also the MP5/M16 seems to have increased rate of fire or damage.

This security guard mysteriously became invincible

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>>2769206
turning on the rocket put a stop to him, though

>>2767873
I'd use NEAREST but it crunches the HUD and it looks broken.

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>start map in hammer editor
>never finish it
>year goes by
>start map in hammer editor
>never finish it
>year goes by
>start map in hammer editor
>never finish it
>year goes by

>>2769256
that looks pretty good, man.

I replayed blue shift recently.
it's a bit better than I remember.
really makes me want another half-life where you play as Barney.

>bullsquid health on normal and easy is 40
>bullsquid health on hard is 140

hmmmm

>>2769256
>star map in hammer
>hard drive failure, site with online backups is dead
>star map in hammer
>hard drive failure, site with online backups is dead
>start map in hammer
>hard drive failure, online backups are corrupt

We're kindred spirits, you and I.

>>2765626
I played half-life in my cousin's pc where he only had it to play counter strike. I remember thinking it was so amazing but I didn't have internet at the time, so I had to content myself by beating uplink for the nth time

>>2765396
I remember the enemy soldiers in Black Mesa having 100% accuracy even in really long distances, but otherwise it was good

In no way it should replace the original HL, though