Half Life 2 Mods

TwwIX

TwwIX

Tank
Joined
Oct 6, 2003
Messages
3,043
Reaction score
1
I Am here to bitch and whine.So, flame ahead! :D

So,that we got that out of our way...

What is going on with today's developers and their mods?
They used to release their projects more frequently with several new versions following.
They even listened to their communities and their input.
Sure, they might still listen to their fan base but with less frequent releases those ideas and suggestions from the players never actually make it into the mods.
Instead the devs focus on bug testing and improving the stability of their current versions,with countless future patches promising to do the same.
I don't know.I Am no expert.Maybe the teams lack experience or are just plain lazy.But i look at mods such as Battle Grounds 2,PVK,Goldeneye Source and Garry's Mod and that's they way it should be done, i say to myself.
Sure, they tend to lack most of the promised features etc at the beginning but they seem to be following the good ol hl 1 days and the trend of "release early,add later",as some would say.But hey,it worked.
These mods eventually made it big and some of them even ended up on the market.CS,TFC and DOD are the prime examples of these kinds of mods.

I don't know.I Am just less enthusiastic about today's hl mods then when i was a few years ago.I have yet to be "wowed" by any of these big lead team projects.They're too damn optimistic about their over hyped mods and take too long to actually release them.Eventually, bombing of course.
Dysotopia,Iron Grip and Insurgency for example.In my opinion these mods are nothing but generic.Yes,they have the eye candy,countless of features and a few mindless drones behind them.In the end these mods are no different from the actual game at all.Just a few models and other eye candy slapped on top.The atmosphere and game play still feels the same.

Start with the flesh and bones then worry about applying the skin.
 
My only complain is how theres not even a single decent singleplayer mod where you play as a combine soldier.

I mean come on, its been 5 years already.
 
3, actually. 2007 - 2004 = 3.

Though I agree playing as a Combine would be cool, I'd rather be CP -- easier to "play" since you're not supposed to be brainwashed.

I also am now ALERGIC to single player mods where you play as Gordon Freeman in some "alternate" time line. That's like spitting on Valve. "Oh no, Freeman wasn't ACTUALLY captured by the Gman again, he ACTUALLY got away because he's leet like that. Yeah, that's what happened. :|

This is why my mod (if I chose to do it) is about someone other than Freeman...
 
You're right, bugtesting is really lazy development... o_0
 
You better get used to it. Some mods go with the "release early and often" approach while other don't. I work on a mod called Decadence and while we certainly want to release early, we can't release it before most of the features are in. The gameplay is relying on the feature in order to work.

Other mods that are a bit simpler can release early and often (Which I think is more fun to work with), but yeah... mods are a bit different nowadays I suppose.
 
please understand that it's obviously a lot harder to make mods in source, and therefore takes far longer. I mean, ZM goes by the "release often" way, but they're on hiatus right now because of something pi's making..
 
No. Freeman, Calhoun, Sheppered, etc. are Valve characters. Make your own.
 
I would rather disembowel myself and attempt to eat my steaming guts than play a mod called "Corporel Sheppered".

TwwIX I agree with you. Mods that release like Zombie Master or Battlegrounds 2 are awesome.
 
I played some weeks ago an Excellent mod called Minerva: Metastasis.
Really well done, but yeah, need more...
 
Minerva is superb, but also a rarity.

Honestly, it's because it simply takes a lot of work to put out a single player mod, or even to release a mod often in stages if it's too complex.

Would you rather play a HL2 mod where releases are far and few between (but present) or a HL mod with a steady stream of releases but (obviously) inferior graphics?
 
We released empires in '06 and we got a shitstorm of complaints. We kept releases going on a biweekly basis ans then decided to hold off and make a big release fixing the big show stoppers. People's initial impressions were already tainted and we still hear "Empires, isn't that that ugly, laggy game with the silly voiceovers?". While they may have some truth to them, we're rather disappointed people will not give it more than one shot.

This baby took longer than expected when the art guys also put some more effort into it. One of the biggest mistakes from 1.0 was the testing where we had around 10 players on the server instead of trying to get a full game going. Now (after 30+ internal releases with 50-60 testers we've gotten to the point where lag isn't really an issue anymore (unless you cram 40 players on the server). With the new maps, visuals and animations, I hope we can interest players again.
 
L3TUC3 said:
We released empires in '06 and we got a shitstorm of complaints. We kept releases going on a biweekly basis ans then decided to hold off and make a big release fixing the big show stoppers. People's initial impressions were already tainted and we still hear "Empires, isn't that that ugly, laggy game with the silly voiceovers?".
Click to expand...

I think this is pretty much the reason that Iron grip isn't popular, which is a shame because it's insanely fun to play.. it was just a bit laggy in the early releases.
COME BACK TO IT, MOD COMMUNITY!
seriously though, it's awesome when you have roughly 5 players, it really gets you going as a team.


Ontopic though, it's sad that no mod that I know of releases often anymore, it's definitely a superior release routine..
 
but one that's very difficult to sustain.
 
The trick is that CS and DoD were not necessarily fun at their very first releases as well. (Well, dunno about DoD, but the first release of CS was about bombing a toilet) Because most mods can't organize large scale testing teams, the first release is usually going to sting for most developers.

And it's not like INS, Iron Grip, and Dystopia were all graphics development and no gameplay. That's an insult to the coders who were working in parallel with the people on the art and level design teams. And you have got to be kidding me about Iron Grip. Iron Grip was released as soon as possible in the vein of your release early philosophy. And then you go cut it down. Any mod is going to go into long period of re-evaluation when people tear it apart on release.
 
Yeah, pretty much every major mod that released in a non-final form (even highly polished betas like Insurgency and Dystopia) got completely ripped to pieces by fans and discarded pretty quickly. I still haven't played Iron Grip or Empires just because my first impressions were poor, despite my knowledge that they've improved dramatically since I tried them.

I would say it's not necessarily an easy decision.
 
A recent interview brought up an interesting take on this issue though:
http://www.halflife.nu/2007/11/21/krenzo-interviewed-about-empires/

Empires mod got trashed heavily, but apparently the people who stayed around on the forums demanding bug fixes were good recruiting material for the testing team. In this case, they got trashed early, but they were able to figure out who was worth consulting for input. Empires 2.0 will be a new milestone for them, and by now perhaps people will be willing to give a free mod a second chance.

Dystopia currently has a fair-sized US community that still plays the game enough to have one full server at any time. While that mod was also heavily criticized, you think that those stragglers left behind might have possible insights to give as testers.

Meanwhile, Insurgency is getting trashed again for some server crashes that are hard to diagnose with small testing teams. The internet is a pretty harsh crowd.:O
 
Dystopia and Insurgency are just crap games.

Insurgency is just boring ass shit.

Dystopia is just bad.

I feel sorry for the guys who made those games. So many bold plans and endless hours of development on bad ideas. Not enough concept testing. Possibily they suffer from ego-centric dominant maniac mod leaders who refuse to accept their vision is complete and utter shite.

Then we get rubbish like Insurgency.

"omg we're not trying to be call of duty 4"

Great...at least try and be semi-enjoyable.
 
Mr-Fusion said:
I feel sorry for the guys who made those games. So many bold plans and endless hours of development on bad ideas. Not enough concept testing. Possibily they suffer from ego-centric dominant maniac mod leaders who refuse to accept their vision is complete and utter shite.
Click to expand...
Dystopia isn't a bad game concept by a long way, it's the maps and spawn system that are mostly to blame. The combat and class balance are actually pretty tight and the team/class/weapon selection menu is about as intuitive a menu could be. The problem is the maps haven't taken advantage of the different class abilities (e.g. super jumping), and they have pretty linear formats that make the gameplay boil down to the same chokepoints again and again. Dystopia has a lot of unrealised potential.

As for Insurgency, if you want a high-realism team shooter then it does quite a good job (lots of bug fixes and design improvements in latest release). If you don't like that sort of game then you won't like it, but that doesn't mean it's crap. And please, please, don't accuse Insurgency of 'copying' CoD 4's "original idea ZOMG" of basing a game around the Iraq War. Americans live, breath and sleep that topic du jour these days, it's not surprising a shooter (or more) have been made around it.
 
Insurgency is not a copy of COD 4 but Red Orchestra.
It pretty much has the same gameplay mechanics but lacks one of the most important components which is "fun".
The problem with mod teams today is that they don't play test their projects as much as they should.They use their testers mainly for bug hunting instead of listening to their input on how to improve the gameplay by making the necessary changes.
One of the half life mods i am currently testing just started their testing phase and they already want to release it even though it lacks in so many areas.
All i can say is,focus on the core gameplay first and put all your effort into that, then start building upon that.Get an early beta out to the public to test it out and start tweaking the game play and improving it by listening to your player base.
 
The release early mantra sounds good on paper, but I don't think it's the way to go anymore. We over at Firearms: Source have been working on the FAS mod for a long time, and have been in alpha testing for many months. We've been focusing all of our testing energy on what we can do to make sure the game stays fun to play for the average shooter; a gameplay model that's very different than Counter-Strike, but has the same addictive quality of play. The pace is kept fast and the action exceedingly violent, with no interruptions (like spawn delays or round timers).

It's tough work. You don't just come up with a set of values one day, put them in a game and expect them to be balanced and adjusted. It takes lots of time and lots of dedicated testing, not just by your testing staff, but also by your dev team. The mappers have to see their maps played to understand what needs to change (routes, spawns, visuals, etc), the coders need to see the weapons in use to understand how they need to be balanced, etc. Most importantly, the devs need to actually play and enjoy the game, and realize that in order for it to succeed, it has to be fun and enjoyable not just to a tiny minority, but to as many people as possible.

I think that's where INS gets their low numbers. They appealed to the ArmA/Red Orchestra crowd, and that's not the way to make a mod that's uber-popular. INS is an awesome game, but I can definitely see why it didn't turn out to be the CStrike killer a lot of us hoped it would be. It just isn't that type of product.
 
Crispy has already posted this, but it seems to be lost in the "Help Wanted & Offered" sub-forum.

http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/24591/the-modular-release-model

It's at least an interesting interpretation of the release early and release often strategy.

That said, larger concepts such as Empires tend to take a lot more time to finish a modular release, as shown by their rocky start. But it's hardly the end of the world for them right now. And since Insurgency is a semi-sim (I decline to call it strictly realistic for the moment), they needed the time to include a large range of features before they could approach anything resembling a modular release.
 
I used to be worried about this, but lately we've gotten the gameplay of FAS to a point where --->I<--- am having fun, so personally if the game gets released and enough people are interested that I can play on a full server I'll be happy :)

it's both a learning experience and a chance to play my favourite mod of all time with decent visuals and all the bug fixes I've always wanted, that's all I would ever want in a mod :)

in a way we confrom to the release often and early mantra, but we do so internally
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Acepilotf14
Forum archival
Replies
0
Views
1K
Acepilotf14
Acepilotf14
Ennui
HL2 20th Anniversary Update + Documentary
Replies
8
Views
2K
Xtremecherry95YT
Xtremecherry95YT
Tollbooth Willie
HL2.NET HORROR SLAP
Replies
7
Views
3K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
Lizardizzle
2019: The year of Half-Life SFX videos
Replies
4
Views
3K
Ennui
Ennui
Hectic Glenn
Valve and Perfect World Announce 'Steam China'
Replies
0
Views
21K
Hectic Glenn
Hectic Glenn
Back
Top