Half-Life series and general Valve discussion.

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Hey everyone, just thought I'd start a Half-Life/Valve thread for all your general Valve talk.

I'm also amazed that there is a Steam category, right next to PC and Mac.

22/01/2009

Brisbane

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longarms

Nano_04 said: Hey everyone, just thought I'd start a Half-Life/Valve thread for all your general Valve talk.
I'm also amazed that there is a Steam category, right next to PC and Mac.

Well vavle are my favorite developer and they make my favorite PC game of time, Half life 2.

So you could say that I'm a massive Valve fan boy

22/01/2009

Central Coast

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Skarteh

Valve are the bomb! I love every HL game and expansion they're all pure gold

I probably like Half-Life 1 the most, it was essentially my Window into proper PC gaming and CS and all that. Brilliant game and brilliant atmosphere which was sadly missing in HL2. HL2 was epic and awesome but different game, different feel. Not so isolated and hostile...

I can't wait for Episode 3 XD

22/01/2009

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Heller

Yeah Half-Life was so much better than HL2 without a doubt!

I think if Valve's track record is anything to go by, we will die of old age before we see episode 3

23/01/2009

Melbourne, Victoria

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Inky

half life 1.... best game ever!!!! valve are great with their games! and then half life 2 comes out

play it, then the orange box comes out

get that on ps3 and play it all over with ep 1 ep 2 and portal with tf2

i hope HL2 ep 3 comes out onto ps3

26/01/2009

Sydney

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schnappy

Valve are a bunch of right-wing american wankers.

There games are great though.

26/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

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Nano_04

I wouldn't say HL2 was worse than HL1, It was different, yes, but definitely not worse.

26/01/2009

Brisbane

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schnappy

IMHO, they're 2 very different games. I preferred HL2 because it kept me interested, but HL just went on and on... I stopped playing when I got to the something facility. It was like the Black Mesa Spec Ops people.

26/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

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Makra

Well, this is a pretty big bump, but better than creating a new thread I guess.
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Does anyone think Valve need to lift their game in the visuals department? I mean, they make great, innovative and clever games, but their graphics seems below par compared to other games. E.g. Left 4 Dead 2, their most recent game. The visuals are at best decent. Yet when you listen to the audio log commentaries, they talk up things like how they managed to give the zombies eye's a red tinge. Honestly, I don't even notice that, nor do I care. I'd much rather beautiful environments. And you wouldn't even think that's such a hard thing to accomplish, yet they make it seems like it is.

Also, their loading times are far worse than most other games. I love their games, I just think they could be so much better if these things were improved.

p.s. This is based on my experience playing on 360, but I know that if I bring this up at the 360 site, about 3 whole people will comment. And you guys probably know more about this type of thing :P

03/06/2010

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Doyl

we know that the games valve make aren't the best visually, but they run the best on the most amount of systems!

also remember, gameplay > graphics.

and another thing to note, play the game on a pc with absolutely maxed settings, muuuuuuch better than the console version, pretty much lightyears ahead.

03/06/2010

Perth - pew pew

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Skarteh

I haven't seen it on 360 but it's pretty relative, in most cases the graphics ramp up the same way on PV as they do on 360 except for like BC2 which looks miles better than MW2 on PC but apparently the other way around on console.

Valve operate a very different way to other companies which you'd have to see on PC to truly get. They've kept the engine so long it's gone from top dog to.... Well not very top dog. But Valve have an incredible bond with it's gamers and kidding community. There are a mind blowing amount of mods for the Source engine because they've supported and updated it long enough for people to learn it's ins and outs and make some wicked mods. Thusly it makes more sense to us PC gamers because we reap the benifits. They could greatly update the graphics but without changing the engine quite a bit it will not do it any good. They need bigger environment support because as you say, there are quite a lot of loading sections for such a small game. Upping the graphics without touching that issue will limit the effect. Valve are too nice to people with shit computers :p

All that said, I'm pretty sure it's on it's way. After Episode 3 I believe they will be moving onto a new engine for any more Half Life games. But it will be quite a ways off.

Funny thing about Valve though, their characters look amazing. Graphics and most of all animation wise, L4D2 has easily the most photorealistic characters I've

03/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Makra

@DoYL Yeah I agree gameplay > graphics, but Valve seem to be way behind other developers with visuals, loading, and physics (another part of the audio commentary talks up how a boomer explodes sending chairs and tables around him flying). And I think, unless they start catching up in those departments, they might not continue to hold their title as possibly the best game developer.

03/06/2010

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Skarteh

Ever seen, including Crysis which is the benchmark on epic graphics.

Edit: they are behind veeeery few games on Physics :/ especially non PhysX games

03/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Makra

@Skarteh so they've kept the same engine since HL 1 or 2? That makes more sense now...

It just seems they put far too much effort into small physics effects than they should have to.

I mean, surely other developers would be laughing at Valve for using such old code that's holding them back right?

03/06/2010

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Doyl

The thing with source is that they change and develop what they need to when they need to rather than build a new engine for each game.
Source is still based on the original source, which is a modified quake 2 engine.

03/06/2010

Perth - pew pew

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Skarteh

It's all HL2 engine, L4D/TF2/Portal and the Episodes are various iterations of the 2004 HL2 engine. They just update it. Their graphics are actually not bad on PC. I mean they're not so ugly it's unpleasant to play, far from it, but they are behind say Call of Duty 4. But that game has NO physics and can't really handle much more terrain than HL2 :p

I doubt anyone is stupid enough to laugh at Valve :p unless they like laughing at a company gamers love which makes games on a 2004 engine and outsell and out rate their own games all while earning truckloads of money on Steam which doubles it's size every year :p

They are not a company to look down on, really only Blizzard could do that with a straight face and they got where they are largely for making virtual crack :p

03/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

Kudos: 76,164

Doyl

HL2 engine is an updated HL1 engine :P it is not a completely new engine.
Even HL2 still has strains of code from quake 2 believe it or not.

03/06/2010

Perth - pew pew

Kudos: 96,242

Skarteh

Lol it's enough of an update to be called a new engine but it has many of the same console stuff in it :p

It was a HUGE step up on HL1.

03/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Noradia

I've played the games that have comeout on the consoles and they are pretty good. I have to say I was very very skeptic about vValve and there sourcen engine buty once I saw Half-Life 2 for the PC I was saying dam those are awesome graphics and the source engine I would have rto say its by far the best game enfgi engine out there. Its so easy to create stuff with the source enfi engine and Valve have dome a fantastic job with the source engine, and I cant wait until they bring out Half-Life 2 episode 3. Sorry for my spelling ,istakes i am druy drunk.

03/06/2010

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Makra

Noradia said: Sorry for my spelling ,istakes i am druy drunk.

That made me lol. Sorry. [monkey]

04/06/2010

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Skarteh

They release engines slowly, but when they do, they're pretty mind blowing :D cannot wait for the next Source engine XD

I still remember playing all those mods from HL1! Particularly the They Hunger series. That was a pretty full game :s there were so many others too, I remember some ninja kinda one with a katana and another one where you were in a fairground. I think that was Co-op...

I love mods :D with so many free mods out there, Half Life is the best value purchase you could ever make. Endless entertainment!

04/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Noradia

Makra said:
Noradia said: Sorry for my spelling ,istakes i am druy drunk.

That made me lol. Sorry.

Its ok and it was true I was wasted last night.

Skarteh said: They release engines slowly, but when they do, they're pretty mind blowing cannot wait for the next Source engine XD
I still remember playing all those mods from HL1! Particularly the They Hunger series. That was a pretty full game :s there were so many others too, I remember some ninja kinda one with a katana and another one where you were in a fairground. I think that was Co-op...
I love mods with so many free mods out there, Half Life is the best value purchase you could ever make. Endless entertainment!

I so totaly agree with you there's so many mods out there for Half-Life then there are for Oblivion and Fallout 3 put together.

04/06/2010

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Skarteh

All three are awesome with mods too. Fallout 3 was so vastly improved by mods its not even funny. Same with Oblivion.

One thing that sadly holds mods back is they usually lack voice acting. It would be sweet if some voice actors got into mods as a start to their career just as modders mod as a start to theirs.

04/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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Noradia

Skarteh said: All three are awesome with mods too. Fallout 3 was so vastly improved by mods its not even funny. Same with Oblivion.
One thing that sadly holds mods back is they usually lack voice acting. It would be sweet if some voice actors got into mods as a start to their career just as modders mod as a start to theirs.

Now that would be awesome to hear voice acting in mods. There have been in some that I've played but they weren't as good as the professionals but still awesome that they went to those lengths. If I can remember what mods I played that had voice acting in it I will post them up.

04/06/2010

Kudos: 96,242

Skarteh

Yeah, the Black Mesa mod looks to have tried to get the voices right too. That is so going to be the best mod ever made :P

I want it more than any game and its only a mod! I would PAY for it :)

04/06/2010

Melbourne, Victoria | Walk with me in hell

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