Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

[Back me up!]

There are clips of the tech demo Valve made for Episode 3 and man I really wish they had just went with it. The ice gun to make walls/ramps/bridges looked really fun and the blob enemy looks absolutely amazing.

I understand that Gabe and the rest of the team is a perfectionist but really just going nuts with the level design with the ice gun and blob enemy easily would have been enough for Episode 3 and gamer would def have not felt ripped off. I get this quote

"You can't get lazy and say, 'Oh, we're moving the story forward,'" said Newell. "That's copping out of your obligation to gamers. Yes, of course they love the story. They love many, many aspects of it. But saying that your reason to do it is because people want to know what happens next, you know—we could've shipped it, it wouldn't have been that hard. The failure, my personal failure was being stumped. I couldn't figure out why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward."

But man some times you don' have make everything so cutting edge when ever one would have just loved closure.

https://archive.is/XMYEN

 

[GNU Abyss]

don't forget the website that has the changelog

https://www.half-life.com/en/halflife2/20th

You can pick up that can on the bottom of the announcement page if you click the gravity gun. Neat detail.

 

[Hazard Crab]

You can pick up that can on the bottom of the announcement page if you click the gravity gun. Neat detail.

Thank you for this. I spent 20 minutes using the gravity gun to fling around all the links, menus, and character models. And look who pops out when you turn the trash can upside down!

 

[indomitable snowman]

Y

You can pick up that can on the bottom of the announcement page if you click the gravity gun. Neat detail.

You can pickup other things on the page too.

 

[30+GameOvers]

I haven't looked at the anniversary stuff yet, did they talk about which elements of HL3/Episode 3 made it into later Valve games?
It's interesting that L4D killed HL3, certainly not a bad tradeoff considering that L4D2 is still the best game in this little subgenre of co-op zombie horde shooters but it does make you wonder what the studio would look like if they did actually finish the game instead.

 

[PunkinMan]

Here's a QRD of all the major changes made to half life 2 if you hate reading and playing games.

 

[Varretnon847]

I'm glad that they added workshop support to HL2, mainly because it's a bit hard to find a centralized website for map sharing (I know MODDB exists but I've always hated trying to browse that site).
I am a bit worried though that the workshop will devolve into more people reuploading preexisting maps rather then uploading new ones, which is what's happening at the moment. Maybe we'll see some new maps in the following months, but it feels like HL2 mapping in general has slowed down these past years.
But hey, maybe now with the workshop and the mapping limits raised, motivation for making more maps will increase in the community.

 

[They were once men]

I'm glad that they added workshop support to HL2, mainly because it's a bit hard to find a centralized website for map sharing (I know MODDB exists but I've always hated trying to browse that site).
I am a bit worried though that the workshop will devolve into more people reuploading preexisting maps rather then uploading new ones, which is what's happening at the moment. Maybe we'll see some new maps in the following months, but it feels like HL2 mapping in general has slowed down these past years.
But hey, maybe now with the workshop and the mapping limits raised, motivation for making more maps will increase in the community.

although it would be nice to have fixed versions of classic hl2 mods on the workshop for easy install because alot of mods where broken by the steam pipe update alot of the times you would have to go hunting for patches / other version and sometimes its a real pain in the ass wonder why no workshop for hl1 last year.

 

[geckogoy]

Oh yeah crap my mods wtf

 

[ZipDisk]

Force them to make episode 3.

Even worse, make them use period accurate hardware and software, no AI bullshit.

I remember when HL2 deathmatch came out my ISP at the time treated it as a DDOS and a lot of people had their internet shut off.

This was before throttling. I miss that internet.

Puzzle maps were the best part of HL2DM.

 

[Bear Powers]

I just know somebody is going to be extremely fucking pissed that valve fucked over their perfect 100% achivement run.

The achievements for base HL2 should carry over but sometimes the achievements for Ep1 or Ep2 don't carry over, it happened to me. I found a fix on the steam forums but I can't find the post now, but it's simple enough - if it happens, look for Ep1 and Ep2 in your library and install them (if they were already installed when the update happened you may still see "install" but it didn't download anything for me). Launch each one once and quit, then launch the updated HL2. All my missing achievements popped right away.

 

[Joe Dough 68]

The achievements for base HL2 should carry over but sometimes the achievements for Ep1 or Ep2 don't carry over, it happened to me. I found a fix on the steam forums but I can't find the post now, but it's simple enough - if it happens, look for Ep1 and Ep2 in your library and install them (if they were already installed when the update happened you may still see "install" but it didn't download anything for me). Launch each one once and quit, then launch the updated HL2. All my missing achievements popped right away.

Just fyi if you don't see them, the original episodes were moved to "tools" section of the library.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Wow, I can't believe 20 years have passed since the release of Half-Life².

Since then we've gotten HL2 Episodes One and Two, Alyx the VR game, Portal 1 and 2, and a good chunk of the HL3 story was posted online. We've also seen basically the entire original teams of Half Life and Opposing Force and Blue Shift no longer work on the series. And now, new teams, including new writers are in charge of the franchise. So the entire aesthetic and tone of the game has (drastically) changed since the first iteration in the franchise.

Force them to make episode 3.

Who is 'them' at this point though? The original team is gone. How many people even from Half Life 2 are there anymore? Or would be willing to return to finally close the franchise. Also Gabe Newell has been rather clear that Half Life 3 or Episode 3 will not be made until there is some significant 'leap in technology' to justify making another tech demo style game in the series.

 

[marvlouslie]

Managed to snag Half Life 2 for free and the original game for $.99 cents on Steam. Weekend sale is still up for those who haven't grabbed it yet.

 

[ZipDisk]

Sink his yachts. That will make him count to 3.

 

[Activelo]

Oh yeah crap my mods wtf

If your mods stopped working, you can revert to the previous build by going to the betas tab.

 

[Cat tit bingo]

For a second I thought the episodes where removed from my library but they and lost coast where just moved to the tools section. I can understand delisting them from the store since it would literally be a complete waste of money for people who don't know about the update but removing the actual apps would have been dirty and shitty...I'm still pissed about cs:go.

 

[Coolio55]

Oh yeah crap my mods wtf

Anyone know if the Krystal mod works?

 

[geckogoy]

For a second I thought the episodes where removed from my library but they and lost coast where just moved to the tools section. I can understand delisting them from the store since it would literally be a complete waste of money for people who don't know about the update but removing the actual apps would have been dirty and shitty...I'm still pissed about cs:go.

This will save the mods

 

[The handsome tard]

Crowbar collective, yes the people who made black mesa announced they are making an entirely new game.

Did they have to go with something that looked catastrophically generic?

Left 4 dead 2 is having a free weekend, including this is a discount on the game and a chance to get the good guy nick achievement finally lol.

I wonder if Left 4 Dead will get a similar anniversary update. The game already got the community made patch The Last Stand and I recall many of its devs had to leave somethings on the cutting room floor (iirc, I think one of them was L4D1 style designs for the L4D2 special infected so they fit in the L4D1's maps thematically better).

Valve at least needs to celebrate these classic games.

No free TVs?!? What a let down

Gabe gets meaner every day