Will it look different when It comes out?

[SerialCarpens]

What do you guys think? Do you think it will pretty much look the same as the videos? What do you think will be different?

 

[Noodlygod]

I hope that all the lights cast dynamic shadows and that vehicles don't look so.... "floaty" Other than those two things I can't think of anything else I'd like to see changed.

 

[Apos]

Q2 looked fairly different from its demo, and they were only one or two months apart, not five months. I'd expect to see even more animation added in and smoothed out as well as a more finished HUD, better sounds, a new crowbar (they already said they were doing this), a bunch of new effects, etc.

As we noted in the water thread, even the e3 movie looks like a big advancement from the "teaser" vid where there were no splash effects and the soldider animation wasn't as polished. And the screenshot of that same scene was even worse, with blocky triangular geometry. So they are definately making big steps and bounds.

But they must also be pretty close to the beta stage, where they stop adding new features and just get everything working and done. I thought I heard that the game was not 100% playble all the way through yet, but then in interviews Gabe described people as "getting through the game" in a certain amount of time, which much mean that it IS playtroughable.

 

[Apos]

The lights will not cast dynamic shadows. And I'm glad: I don't want to sacrifice all the other detail just for ONE graphical effect with only minor gameplay impact. In D3 that one feature takes up a full HALF of the game's power.

What do you mean about "floaty" vehicles? I thought the buggy looked pretty solid: bouncing around from impacts and such

 

[Chrono]

I would like to see the ability to roll the vehicle your in. Whether you would die from it or not I don't know but it would add that extra realism and would enable scripted events for MOD's such as a pileup of vehicles, with some rolling/flipping etc.

Also, i'm not bothered about Dynamic Shadows. As Apos said, it does add a great impact on the performance of the game, for something you don't really look at that often.

 

[urseus]

It wont look as realistic as the movies.

This is because movies of games are not as many FPS and are slightly blurry. Your eye fills in the gaps, which makes it look alot more fluid. The textures will be sharper and slightly more cartoony, but thats the same as any computer game at this point in game development.

 

[Chrono]

That is true however dont forget in the E3 video, it would have been displayed on a very large screen, thus stretched and probably run in a pretty low res so that people can see everything so the FPS would be pretty high, however your points are valid

 

[Apos]

The res must have been very high actually, because it was showing on a huge cinema screen.

 

[[Matt]]

Expect some changes when the game comes out.... but to be honest if valve actually hit this release date then it will be the first ever time thay have released a game on time!

 

[SerialCarpens]

I really think they will make the date, They sound really confident about it. Are the vids from E3 from last september or november-I forgot which month it is-or are they brand new vids?

 

[righte0us]

HL2 will much likely very different from what we seen so far.
the vids from E3 are from an old build, and anybody remembers post-HL pictures? now compare that to today post-HL2 pictures and imagine how the final build will be like :E

 

[BDC22]

apos, good observations, i noticed that with the water in the scripted sequence as well. i belive the changes will be quite noticeable, although the rest of the time spent will be for ironing out bugs, finishing and finalizing content.

 

[Bad^Hat]

As we've seen in games, dynamic shadows are something you only really need in a stealth intensive games. They'll either be an option to turn on or off (keep em off ) or if they're left out I'm sure modders will find a way to code them in. I'm not really bothered either, this way they can control the lighting however they wish, and as we've seen from HL1 they're pretty good at that.

 

[Idolon]

Originally posted by righte0us
HL2 will much likely very different from what we seen so far.
the vids from E3 are from an old build, and anybody remembers post-HL pictures? now compare that to today post-HL2 pictures and imagine how the final build will be like :E

Yes, but thats different.
After Valve had delayed half-life ~5-6 times they decided that they weren't happy with the result and that they should remake the entire game. Which they did.
So, you see, those old pictures are from an entirely different game.

 

[[Matt]]

Originally posted by SerialCarpens
I really think they will make the date, They sound really confident about it. Are the vids from E3 from last september or november-I forgot which month it is-or are they brand new vids?

They sounded confident that half-life 1 would have been out by summer 1997 (they got to around 99% completion and then scrapped what they had doen because they were not happy with it.... the game took another 1 1/2 years). They sounded confident that TF2 would have been out by the end of 1998 (still MIA after 5 years). They sounded confident that thier powerplay initiative would have been launched in Q4 2000 (Its basicaly MIA and will never come out as it was just a load of hot air). They sounded confident that Steam v2 would have been officially released by november 2002 (Anyone who has got steam now has a beta version. The servers they have now still cannot cope with the amount of traffic). They sounded confident that CS condition Zero would be out by november 2002(Been through 3 developers now. each time a new developer gets hold of the game they scrap a lot of the work and start afresh).

My point is that you shouldnt get your hopes up about Valve hitting a release date as they never have before. Looking at the E3 vids its fair to say that Valve should hit this release date on time but im certainly not placing any bets on it.

 

[Wild_Ragnar]

even if the game doesnt come out in time, i will wait... because it will probably be worth the wait...:bounce: i mean just look how hl1 turned out to be...:sniper: besides it will probably have a lot of bugs in it as well, so there will be alot of patches to download...
:afro:

 

[EVIL]

I dont mind waiting.. I have waited 3 years for DOOM³ (stil no release date) so I am used to dah waiting

 

[[Matt]]

I think we are into like the 16th or 17th patch for HL1 now... :E

 

[JunkieXL]

I don't think there will be such major changes, except for maybe a little weapon tweaking, and maybe some skins will change, but no biggy.