HL2 Assumptions

[Kyle]

Okay, so we all have read the articles and seen the screenshots. Or at least most of us have. Now fill in the gaps that Valve has left out... Remember, this topic is entirely opinion and none of it is true so don't take it too seriously

Okay this is the way I figure it, you start the game in a huge battle with a bunch of weapons fighting for your life than a huge monster comes and you have to start running where the G-Man comes and saves you or you get lost and end up doing your own thing.

Multiplayer will obviously not be TF2 but will definately be something new, amazing, and spectactular if they neglect to say what it is. Definately something never seen before.

Anything can be used as a weapon... That includes picking up objects and throwing them... Hell maybe you can even shoot out a chandelier and have it drop on an alien and kill him... Although that's not very likely but I did read in a preview where a grenade actually blew a computer out through a window and knocked over a fence which landed on a guy and killed him... No scripts, nothing, just plain old physics... Now that's fricking amazing!.

Now what should be extremely interesting is the use of smart A.I. The A.I. has learned to use stairs and such and now that means Barney will be able to follow you from floor to floor and that includes bad guys too. Running don't mean sh*t unless you got one hell of a hiding spot. But you guys already know that.

Plan on taking a LONG break from school and work and whatever else you do in life... If I remember correctly, if you played the game nonstop, it would take you at least either 36 hours or 3 days to finish the entire game. I think it was 36 but I don't remember. And can we say replay value in the fact that you aren't forced to do something in a certain way anymore? This game is gonna keep you hooked for a long time, even after you've beaten it for the hundreth time... Okay maybe not but you definately won't throw the game in the closet once you're finished.

 

[Shippi]

I think I read in PCZONE that it's over 40 hours long...

Who needs a social life?



I heard on the Half-Life Message Board (www.community.vugames.com) from someone (can't remember who) that 15 years has passed between HL1 and 2, and you've been working for the G-Man, but... why does Eli Vance have to fill you in on what's been happening?

I reckon that City 17 is the second stage of a sinister experiment (BM was the first), and only the G-Man, Eli Vance, and a few others know what's been going on about the aliens. All the BMRF personnel (and soldiers) that survived are there, and they're being watched, to see how they, as the best and brightest, survive and adapt...

Well, that's what I think anyway.

 

[SilentKilla]

I dont know any of these people you guys are talking about.. "Eli, Gman." I didnt finsh the first game. I made it to the part where you crawl through that tunnel and see the jets fly by, and i kept playing untill the part a little further than that to were you fight the BIG WHITE THING.. If one of his things he throws hits you, you go to a different place.. Its wierd, anyone know where i was? how close to beating it i was? I know i was very darn close. .:cheers:

 

[Shippi]

Eli's that African-American scientist you see in HL1, and the G-Man is that weird guy in the blue suit which you see watching you throughout the game.

Big white thing? You mean Nihilanth? If so, he's the end-game boss.

SilentKilla, don't give up! Avoid the teleports he throws at you, and kill 'im! He's not so tough without his crystals to protect him!

 

[SilentKilla]

Ok, First things first, thanks, lol, umm i dont remember the african american guy, however i do remmeber g man. One thing i do not understand is, i was using the Unlimited Ammo almost the whole way through the game, and it really wasnt "Unlimited" And when i got to that boss at the end, the cheat wasnt going in, (lol) so all i had was 25 MP5 shells, and 6 Magnum bullets. My question is, how could you guys make it the whole way through, without using a ammo cheat?

 

[Shippi]

I had plenty of ammo when I reached Nihilanth... *shrugs*

What do you mean, the cheat wasn't going in? Impulse 101 is the only ammo cheat I know. When you need ammo, you bring down the console, and type it in... I don't see why it wouldn't work

If it still doesn't work, start the game from the beginning, and use ammo sparingly. Then you won't need to cheat. It's a lot more satisfying finishing it by yourself.

If you don't want to do that, you could always noclip and try to whack Nihilanth to death with your trusty ol' crowbar, but I wouldn't recommend it. :E


We're getting a bit off topic... I think we better shut up now

 

[GhostRyder]

Try checking out some articles in pc gamer and cgw people, but don't scan.

hooah

 

[pretz]

are we supposed to post our assumptions?

im under the impression this will be the most modded PC game to date, and that it will launch some exciting new ideas based on the state-of-the-art AI systm

of course, ive always been more interested in multi than single player anyway

 

[Reverend CPU]

I imagine Valve is focusing a lot on the single player experience, but what I'm wondering is, do you guys think it can compete with ID and DOOM III's single player? They seem to be going all out.

 

[Kyle]

But single player only goes so far... If you want a game to live forever you have to make it multiplayer.

 

[Apos]

Multiplayer will obviously not be TF2 but will definately be something new, amazing, and spectactular if they neglect to say what it is. Definately something never seen before.

Uh... nuh. I doubt it. They aren't focusing on multiplayer from the sound of things: nto because it's some big secret, but because they have other things to worry about first. I suppose it could include CounterStrike or some other mod out of the box, but definately no TFC-like mod, as that would hurt their sales of TF2.

 

[[Matt]]

Originally posted by Kyle
Anything can be used as a weapon... That includes picking up objects and throwing them... Hell maybe you can even shoot out a chandelier and have it drop on an alien and kill him... Although that's not very likely but I did read in a preview where a grenade actually blew a computer out through a window and knocked over a fence which landed on a guy and killed him... No scripts, nothing, just plain old physics... Now that's fricking amazing!.

I remember reading UK PC gamer and the Journo playing had a go. He played a map set on a small rickety wooden pier and had a shotgun in his possesion whilst 2 Headcrab zombies were stumbling towards him... His first reaction was to shoot the nearest zombie where upon it fell down in a realistic fashion. The he turned to shoot the second zombie this time taking an aimed shot at the head that zombie fell backwards into the water and floated about bobbing in time to the waves. By this time the first zombie had scrambled to its feet and was proceeding towards him. Remebering the physics engine he had been shown earlier he took an aimed shot at one of the piers planks in front of the zombie which sllightly broke the plank and sent splinters and shards of wood flying everywhere. Then the zombie steps on the plank which collapses under it making the zombie fall through the hole only to get stuck with its arms flailing about everywhere....

Impressive.... Most impressive...

 

[Hendar]

Crappy AI

I notice on the screenie of the map editor that there are hint nodes which I assume work in the same way as HL 1. THIS IS A BAD THING! In HL 1 it was very noticable that the enemies were moving from node to node. This is hardly the dynamic AI which we have been promised. I thought that this node to node movement style was something which really let down the enemies in the first game, basically they spent too long getting from A to B and got a lot of bullets up the arse for their troubles, instead of stopping and shooting as soon as they had a line of sight. This might seem like a minor point to some of you but I want HL2 to give the game industry the same boot up the backside that HL1 did. The three legged walking thingy looks v. cool though...

 

[Hendar]

No more moonwalking!

While I'm ranting.....Animation. When I first heard of skeletal animation systems I thought it would mean there would be no preset animations. Basicaly, the physics of every limb and joint would be calculated on the fly so that a soldier could be knocked over and would have to actually know how to position it's limbs in order to stand up. To open doors it would have to actually 'push' it instead of sending a 'use' command, to fire a gun he would pull his finger around the trigger and would realistically struggle for balance on uneven surfaces. To my mind Die By The Sword is the only game I know to have even attempted this in a small way. And before you say thats asking a bit much, so what? Arn't games like HL2 supposed to be pushing the boundries on stuff like this? No more moonwalking characters! I wanna see the friction between boot and floor calculated, not just playing a standard run animation and increasing an X coordinate! Wadda ya'll think?

 

[Zerimski]

From what I've read, it certainly points to the level of realism in the animations that you're talking about.

 

[Metcore]

I´m under the impression that the mods for HL1 is what made the game last for so long, I just hope that HL2 will support modding even more, so that modding-skilled gamers can make their own "versions" of HL2. I think thats the key to get a game to last on the best-selling lists... And for us gamers it means you get alot of good (?) games at the price of one!

 

[RoyalEF]

Hint nodes may be a necessary evil. Hopefully the AI will have overcome such sillyness as the inability to walk up/down stairs/ramps, & jump. In HL if I walk up stairs just 32 units off the main floor zombies will stop approaching me--like i'm invisible. Getting monsters to take stairs is a PITA.

Some very interesting bits from what I've read that I'm looking forward to...

Valve created the game with the MOD community in mind. The HAMMER is supposed to include more for MODing right in the editor.

Clearly the engine is much more capable, polywise. It also can handle large outside areas. I'm not sure if that means it does a polyreduction/fog thing across distance or that the limit is just higher. Hopefully the former. I noticed more cylindrical objects, but the item i'm the most curious about was the cables. Many cables hanging/drooping. I wonder if these are block-based or entity-based. Entity would be sweet, set two anchor points, set the slack value and simply let it hang dynamically.

If you assign a brick texture to a block the block takes on all properties of the materials, including sound when hit(already had), buoancy(sp?), how it breaks, etc. Obviously a texture has additional properties--which I would think would all be customizable this time with new textures. No more new textures sounding wrong when walked.

Their lips are synchronized to the words they are speaking. This is automatic. The article said is analyzes the waveform of the sound clip on the fly and shapes the mouth accordingly. SO even foreign language versions may look more realistic.

Additionally, they talked about the eyes being animated. I'm curious what they've done there. Having eyes that move independent of the head is interesting.

The coolest thing I read had to be the evolution of the headcrab. If a headcrab zombie is killed the headcrab detaches from its host and goes crawling for a new host!

They also described an alien who realizes you are hiding inside a room. He breaks the window on the door and inserts a little camera-like eye that spots you, then starts to break down the door. None of this was scripted. This is encouraging. The alien suspected where you were, used a small breakable window to investigate(probably unique AI for this alien) then proceeded to break the door. HL2 AI interacts with other entities-sweet. I'm sure there are interactions they haven't programmed, but it opens up the possibilities for interactive play.

The real physics should be interesting. I wonder how much has to be tinkered with to work. Clearly they have done some advanced working on the physicality of objects. Hopefully no more pushable objects that hang in mid-air because 1 unit of their size model is still sitting on a ledge. I wonder if things tilt and fall. Does this mean people won't be able to run across a 1 inch ledge at full speed? I wonder how far they were able to go with the whole real physics concept. The example of throwing a wrench into a piston engine stopping it is an example of something that could be more script than basic physics.

 

[Murray_H]

I read in PC Zone that 'Gordon struggled for grip' as he walked over some wood fragments. That could just be journalistic talk, or it could mean that some sort of grip system has been introduced.

I think a tilt feature would be too frustrating to have in a FPS, would be annoying the 25th time you tried to walk over a plank on the first level......

 

[RblDiver]

Or they could just make nice wide planks lol

 

[The_Wildcat]

I don't know what HL2 will be like, but the idea of physics based engines has been used before. Lost World: Trespasser used a physics engine. You could use objects like bats, crates, even an wrecked jeep on a small ledge to kill the dinosaurs.

I dropped crates on raptors. I even through a rebar into the neck of a dead raptor.

One draw back was that the physics where almost too cumbersome. The character often dropped guns and ammo by accident. Plus you couldn't carry more than two items, inlcuding weapons, at a time. Getting her to stack crates was a pain. Not to metion that there was no moding or multiplayer.

No wonder the game didn't last very long. A small community of fans popped up. They are still around.

I hope that none of this happens with HL2.

It's been a few years now, and hopefully the Source engine will work better. Valve is a completely seperate company and has taken years to develop this engine.

From what I've seen and read, it sounds like several different types of physics will be used. Crates might have box physics while characters would have the much hailed ragdoll physics. It sounds like they have everything well in hand. That's good enough for me...for now.

 

[Apos]

About the AI:

From what I read, it sounds like there are two basic things going on with any creature at a given time. First and foremost, it has a priority system, whereby it decides the most important things for it to be doing. This is its main AI system: and it should work simply by you dumping it into a map: it'll still interact with other creatures, you, and game objects the way it's supposed to. But sometimes within this system there WILL be "scripted" sequences in any given area. A Valve person describes it like this: "basically, in the priority system, it has code that says "well, if you don't have anything better to do at the moment, go do this specific cool thing." So, that's a script: but that's GOOD, not bad. Because the script can be ended at any time if something more important comes up (like you, with a shotgun). I get the feeling we're going to have lots of fun NOT running into a place guns blazing, but rather sneaking around so we can see creatures doing stuff without interuption.

So nodes are still necessary, because the designers want to fine tune exactly what's going to happen in the story at any given moment: they want to make sure some cool stuff at least tries to happen. Frankly, I'd rather have a game that's really well scripted than one which is totally dynamic and totally realistic. If I wanted realism, I'm already in the real world. I want things to be fun: without taking my mind off the game because something happens that defies logic. So this sounds like a really good balance between scripts and roaming AI. Frankly, I think the scripts in HL were great. Sure, it wasn't totally realistic in that they were always the same, and basically the only way you could stop them was by blowing them up. But they made you really want to keep going to see what else was in store. It was great for it's time.

And indeed, the way they talk about it, it sounds sort of like every creature has scripts built into IT, instead of built into the level itself as much. That is, there may be a node for "smashable window" on every smashable window (perhaps linked to the textures?) but the creature also has a "smash window" sequence that it chooses to run whenever it decides it's necessary. It may also be scripted to smash a certain window at a certain time for a certain trigger. But it could do it elsewhere at any time as well.

What I really hope is that this new work on the creatures will make even lousy user-created maps fun. Because the creatures will be so dynamic and creative that they'll be fun to interact with even if the mapmaker does a poor job at setting things up. Instead of having to script out a complicated sequence, all you have to do is build the right environment for it to be likely to happen in.


Of course, all this is speculation. At the moment, all we have it hype.

 

[Shodan]

nilhalanth or something?

Originally posted by SilentKilla
I dont know any of these people you guys are talking about.. "Eli, Gman." I didnt finsh the first game. I made it to the part where you crawl through that tunnel and see the jets fly by, and i kept playing untill the part a little further than that to were you fight the BIG WHITE THING.. If one of his things he throws hits you, you go to a different place.. Its wierd, anyone know where i was? how close to beating it i was? I know i was very darn close. .:cheers:

UM yeah the Gman is that guy you kepp seeing in the suit behind doors and glass and stuff (glass-man)
and I think your talking about nihalanth the final boss

 

[Apos]

Trespasser was trying to do something too complicated, too early. It was a unique and great concept, but the engine just wasn't up to snuff yet: if you're going to force us to live in the real world, you've got to make sure it FEELS like the real world: not a strange place where everything's made of rubber, objects can't spin or tumble right, and you focus on the very sorts of realisms that games are supposed to be taking us AWAY from (like jamming guns, clumisness, etc).

I have no expectation that HL2 will be anything like that. For one thing, it's still a shoot-em up, and there's no indication that you'll spend lots of time with no weapons, carrying crates and barrels around. The physics exist manily to give the world a realistic, complex feel, and to make more complicated puzzles and scripts and interactions possible.

They are also using a well accepted thirdparty physics engine, Havok, with their own tweaks. So we can be sure that it'll be way beyond Trespasser in terms of feel.

 

[Metcore]

I'd rather have a game that's really well scripted than one which is totally dynamic and totally realistic. If I wanted realism, I'm already in the real world. I want things to be fun: without taking my mind off the game because something happens that defies logic.

Apos: I could not agree with you more, people who keep saying a game sucks because its not realistic have always annoyd me... and i think Valve is aware of that having fun playing the game is more important than the game being realistic, after all a singleplayer FPS game is still about shooting the shit out of monsters!

Having fun playing must have a higher priority than realism ffs!

 

[Hendar]

Realism

There is a difference between being realistic and feeling realistic. The later is more fun.

 

[Hendar]

Realism

Three legged walking things look cool and are fun to fight, but a tank is more practical.

 

[Hendar]

HL2 will wup DooMIII good

Was anyone else BRUTALLY dissapointed with Unreal2? Pretty graphics and erm, not much else...I'll run out and buy HL2 when it's released but I don't think I'm gonna bother with DooMIII. Behind all the hype it looks like they are just creating the next 'OOh look at the polycount!' FPS with lots of dull scripting. I have nothing against scripting per se it's just that it's always very obvious when something is scripted and it make things feel more like your watching a movie than playing with AI buddys. HL2 could be released using the HL1 graphics engine but I wouldn't give a damn as long as the physics and AI had been totally done up.

 

[neva]

Unreal2 was pretty short and the weapons was alittle bit of a dissepointment. I think that they could have done that game much much gooder.. But Some really nice thinks was smacked in the game exempel: That you can command troopers and place turrets and laser fences.. Another think was the atmosfere in the game was really good !!

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by SilentKilla
I dont know any of these people you guys are talking about.. "Eli, Gman." I didnt finsh the first game. I made it to the part where you crawl through that tunnel and see the jets fly by, and i kept playing untill the part a little further than that to were you fight the BIG WHITE THING.. If one of his things he throws hits you, you go to a different place.. Its wierd, anyone know where i was? how close to beating it i was? I know i was very darn close. .:cheers:

i bought the game like 2 months after it origanally came out..I never really played the singleplayer until late last year..it was worth it though.Same with HL2..i probably wont even play singleplayer..just lose interest quick