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Half-Life 2 Interview Illuminates
As part of the continuing Half-Life 2 media blitz, GameSpy has an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi about the much-heralded FPS sequel. This insightful interview has info on who'll be returning: "A few of your friends from Black Mesa are in Half-Life 2, and they are sort of immediately your allies; like some of the scientists and Barney the security guard character", as well as more on system requirements: "I think that Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128mb of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects." Meanwhile, the third direct-feed Half-Life 2 movie, 'Kleiner's Lab', is available via Steam, Gamers Hell, BitTorrent via GameTab, and most of the other usual online stockists.
http://www.gametab.com/files/torrents.php?fuse=55
"I think that Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128mb of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects."
Pentium II 800?
I thought they peaked at, like 450!
My old PC is worse than I thought.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Did Valve hype Half-Life 1 this much I can't remember? Anyone else thing Half-Life is the best game of all time(monkey island comes close)?
I would think that the less punishing the system requirements, the more people will be able to play (and buy) the game. As the owner of a not-so-state of the art system (1.2 Duron, GeforceFX 5200), I'm glad that I'll be able to play.
...Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128 of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects. For folks who want the ultimate experience, they'll want the latest ATI card, and the fastest processor available from AMD or Intel. The game engine is scalable. In other words, the better your computer/graphics card the better looking HL2 will be as the game engine will up the detail, textures, polycount, etc. I think it's a pretty neat concept and can't wait to see how it works out. I will be very irritated if my buddy's P2 looks as good as my XP 2800+ ;)
Gamespy reports JC himself has stated these are the target min specs for Doom3 for comparision.
1GHz CPU
256MB RAM
GF1 or Radeon 7xxx series card
No mention of the minimum card for HL2, though they do shamelessly plug ATI in general. Sell out, with me oh yeah...
All just for comparison.
Exactally. Welcome to the PC game market reality.
Take a look at the movies that are coming out. They are not going back to the common denominator. The government guy movie is quite impressive, facial animations -and- resolution. It also gives a good contrast to the tech 5 years ago by showing the old version in the first shots.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I'm far less interested in the single player than I am in the engine and the tools it will come with to develop multiplayer mod/levels.
Is there a BitTorrent for the file in any other format?
It is a neat concept, one that's been around since before Quake 1. Every FPS or graphics-heavy game has settings for model complexity, texture detail, resolution, anti-aliasing, etc. Do you play computer games?
If this is the third movie, does anyone have links to the first two?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Wow, the parent got modded both insightful AND flamebait. I guess I'll have to consider that the highest possible compliment meaning I captured the discussion perfectly and two people had nothing to add other than completely agree and completely disagree. The flamebait is off base because I provided a concrete example of both the negative aspect of allowing slow PCs to continue on as well as a solution another game made. If you think I am paranoid, just watch the difference between an RtCW competition (no tight PB controls) and an ET competition (very tight PB controls). The RtCW game will look like a field of grey with axis and allies running around, but hey its got a low min spec!
450mzh was the fastest/final Intel PII.
If they made a movie of your life, would anybody buy a ticket?
That is not to say there aren't any - there are at least two other survivors (of which you catch a brief glimpse when they escape the ship using an escape pod) and there's of course dr. Janice Polito who is guiding you (by radio) through the first four levels.
But still - the logs tell the sad stories of the crew going about their daily business, unaware that they only have hours to live; the stupid decisions by the various commanding officers, leading to the disaster to follow; the desperate attempts to regain control of the ship, and later to simply survive. It's gripping stuff.
For some reason my copy of SS2 no longer works - the graphics completely fall apart when enemies fire at me, and in certain rooms. This didn't happen the first time I played it, but I've installed a new DirectX and a new Detonator driver since then. Has anybody else experienced this? Is there a solution for it? I'd love to play this game again, especially using those new models from SS2: Rebirth.
As for the other games you mention, I agree about Thief (it seems just too tiresome to play), Deus Ex is absolutely fantastic, and the head crabs from HL seem rather inspired by the movie "Alien" ;-)
The best multiplayer mapmakers, however, design their maps the same way the single player maps are designed, with careful planning and knowledge of how the game will be played. You do what you can to keep the player from seeing too much of the map at once (kills framerates on lower-end computers, especially once all of the players are in there), and to keep the flow moving through certain areas.
Usually the SP game can take much more advantage of the computer's capabilities in terms of level design, while the multiplayer game will bring the computer to it's knees with even the most simple maps (go play sq1 for TFC with a half dozen people).
What you really need is not so much a good PC as good knowledge of your PC's limitations and the game's options for getting the most out of it. Once you tune the network settings and limit the framerate appropriately, it takes a lot to bring even a mediocre computer to it's knees.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
No, it means there was one stupid moderator and two who realized you're clueless.
The flamebait is onbase because you don't know what you're talking about. Just because someone is running a P3-800 doesn't mean everyone else is going to be scaled back to their level of detail. The game will adapt to whatever settings you want... if you're doing multiplayer then the admin may enforce some options (I'd imagine they'll enable this in HL2 MP since it's already in HL), and then those who can't handle that level of gameplay will just have to find a different server.
You didn't provide a concrete example, you provided meaningless spewage.
"They will have the settings so low that fog and grass and trees and rain and whatever else will disappear, leaving anyone with a system powerful enough to handle these things at a disadvantage.
:)
I don't think it'll be like that. I think it'll be more of a draw distance/texture quality/texture effects/particle FX/water FX tradeoff. Getting rid of landscape objects/environment effects client-side would be bloody stupid. Every player would just turn off the eye candy to gain an advantage.
"an admin can limit how much a client can play with their cvars and still be allowed on that server"
Although HL2 won't use Punkbuster (IIRC), I would think it would allow some of that kind of functionality to server ops. If your PC can't handle the GFX load required, you leave or play the HL2 slideshow.
"Valve has just basically invited (and really forced) everyone to stay in Half-life 1 level graphics for another generation."
Are you an id fan? That's FUD, plain and simple.
Clearly sir, you are the one who does not know of what we are discussing. No, everyone is not AUTOMATICALLY scaled to the lowest PC's LOD. That is not what I am claiming. If you had ever played in a gaming league, however, you would know that this is what happens. Everyone trys to turn off all the settings. I wouldn't have had to go into more detail, but you are clearly ignorant of this side of gaming. What you IMAGINE will happen is all well and good, but I live in reality. I appreciate the quality of gameplay being locked at a certain level (and yes, graphics do enhance gameplay when there are trees to hide behind and walls that have color to blend in with, etc) by the publisher. When an engine can be scaled back this far, it will be. Period. When one person turns of trees and textured walls, EVERYONE will to stay competitive. Your ignorance of this situation astounds me. Perhaps you are the type of guy who goes to a PC club to play Counter-strike and stab someone and calls himself an informed gamer. Good day.