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CS: Source Half-Life's Only Multiplayer
James DeSimas writes "Halflife2.net was able to get an exclusive interview with Chuck Osborn from PCGamer. In the interview he found out that Counter-Strike: Source is indeed the only Multiplayer for Half-Life 2." This comes on the heels of the news that PC Gamer will feature a special HL2 Review in its upcoming issue. Full Steam and Retail packaging details about the game are also available from many sources today as well.
No crowbar headcrushing in multiplayer?
That is no fun at all!
--
Knut Karlsen, norway
Halflife2.net was able to get an exclusive interview with Chuck Osborn from PCGamer
So what happens when a journalist interviews a journalist anyway? That's not good journalism, IMHO.
FTA:
* Standard Edition - includes HL2 and CS:Source. Ships on six CDs, in one of three box-art packages (Gordon, Alyx or the G-Man).
* Collector's Edition - includes Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source, a Half-Life 2 T-shirt and a Prima book sampler. Ships on a single DVD.
First I would like to say that Vivendi Universal has pulled crap in the past related to shipping and hr practices, and other crap, and other crap, and that means it's an unstable publisher in my books.
We're not sure if Steam will have HL2 or not. It's up to Vivendi last I checked. We're not sure if CS Source will be considered part of the Vivendi distro or not either. Speculation upon speculation at this point, IMHO. Note that this was a PC Gamer guy who was interviewed by some other guy
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
CS sourse is the only reason to buy Half Life, does this mean no mods?
I, for one, don't get much enjoyment head-shotting AI, anyway.
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
Having even basic multiplayer (HL DM, Team DM) would give mod-makers a head-start in developing more complex multiplayer mods, so saying that mod-makers can add in HL DM is really no excuse.
I am incredibly disappointed that it seems there will be now regular HL2 Deathmatch. I played CS from beta 2 until the present, but I have gotten extremely fed up with CS and want plain, vanilla HL2 DM again...no waiting until your idiot teammate wearning the "myg0t" tag dies as he is the only one left alive on your team...
;)
Of course, I will be buying the Steam Gold pachage b/c I am a fanboy
The entire interview can be summed up as saying HL2 is really cool and that Counter Strike Source is the only multiplayer... though I'm sure we'll see other mods in time.
That being said, this interview basically told me not to get too excited about HL2. I'm a huge fan of HL and its mods, but I get bored quickly with single player games... I want multiplayer. AI in games can only go so far. I'm also not a big fan of counter strike. I prefer DoD and Natural Selection (some others are okay once in a while). So, no rush for me to buy HL2 when it comes out.
They've delayed this game way too many times to the point that I've pretty much lost interest in it.
Maybe when it hit's the bargain bins.....
Even though no one else has said this yet in this thread, because someone says this in basically every story like this - whatever happened to co-op modes?. Hardly any games have co-op any more, which I find to be the most enjoyable type of multiplayer first person shooting. Ever since playing through doom 2 in co-op I've been hooked yet no one seems to want to make games with this feature any more - they want us to fight each other instead of teaming up :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, have they decided yet which package we who went out and bought Radeons a year or two ago will get?
Team Fortress 2 will be a separate game. It will not be included with the game (did you read the summary?) - you'll have to buy it separately. Team Fortress Classic will be ported to the new engine as a free mod though, I imagine.
half-life 2 will (hopefully) feature TF2, CS sucks badly!
I hear ya brother.
Valve didn't really have any multi-player in HL either. CS/TFC/DoD were all 3rd party mods which got popular and Valve made them 'official' mods or whatever you want to call them. I'm sure there will be 101 Multi-Player mods out there. Not to mention SvenCoop2 :)
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
What about those of us who don't like CS? Single player better rock and the mod community work hard and fast or this is going to be a wasted purchase...
I love half life and all of it's add ons but cutting out multiplayer in exchange for a mod is just lame. Why not make multiplayer then release Source as a official mod like TFC?
I like muppets.
People should take not that PC gamer is essentially a marketing tool to get gamers to buy the games that gives 'exclusives' to the mag. Expecting an honest assessment of HL2 or really any game from this would be rather naive. Driv3r comes to mind as a fine example of 'exclusive' reporting at work in the game review business, where certain publishers/reviewers somehow overlooked the many and obvious bugs in the game and still talked about it in a rather positive manner.
Doom3 as well is a good example of this; nearly every single reviewer (both mags and sites) for the first few weeks acted as if this game was in fact the second coming of christ. While Doom3 was very well executed and obviously had amazing graphics, I am unsure how people felt so positively about a game that really got drudgerous after the 7th lab that you had to transverse to reach hell. And then you just go back to the labs after you reach hell for more hallway adventure. For all the amazingness of the engine, I was hoping for more variety in the environments, which with the exception of hell and outside on mars, there was very little that changed.
These rags are definitely not the place to get a real opinion on a game; their real value is for the screenshots they release as part of the exclusive. Otherwise, it is often difficult to tell the reviews from the advertisements themselves that share the pages.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
If this is the case, I am interested as to what multiplayer code they will provide in the SDK. They will have to provide a basic DM system for people to build on, or will they just give the counter-strike code?
It's rather odd.
Steam Packages
* Bronze -- HL2* and CS:Source.
* Silver -- HL2*, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source*, Day of Defeat: Source*, Valve's back catalog currently available on Steam.
* Gold -- HL2*, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source*, Day of Defeat: Source*, Valve's back catalog currently available on Steam, Complete Strategy Guide from Prima Games, 3 different Half-Life 2 posters, Half-Life 2 hat, Half-Life 2 postcard, Half-Life 2 stickers, Half-Life 2 Soundtrack CD, Chance to win a trip to Valve! (1 trip offered for every 5000 Gold packages purchased).
*To be made available upon product's release.
Also what does "to be made available upon product's release" mean? Does that mean DoD source isn't done? Does that mean HL1: Source isn't done? So basically if you buy the gold package next week the only thing you'll get are stupid posters, strategy guid, hat, postcard, stickers, soundtrack and all the old valve games until the other games are actually finished which still noone has any idea as to when that will happen?
Whats the word with Natural Selection? This has to be the best HL multiplayer mod there is. I would be thoroughly disappointed if this never came about.
I think we need to bring back Mega TF :)
-dk
I don't think anybody wants to compete with UT2004. No one, including Battlefield 1942, does it better right now. It's addictive, there's almost no learning curve, and even n00bs can have a good time and rack up high scores by playing support. Doom 3 only had basic deathmatch, Quake IV will be mainly single-player as well. It's not surprising Valve didn't want to go through the monumental investment of getting a good multiplayer option going when they already had CS.
I mean, there was Team Fortress 2, and it looks like a stillborn from here- there's been no real news on the game for at least two years, and almost all of the features intended for it have made their way into other realistic war themed shooters (parachuting into missions from planes, allies showing up as squad re-inforcements, voice chat).
http://www.hlfallout.net/viewnews.php/7470/
I read the article, but saw no mention of TF2. That said, any idea when TF2 is coming out? I loved TFC (hate CS).
So what ever happened to Team Fortress 2?
Insert Sig Here
This shouldn't take as much of a surprise to the average Counterstrike player. I imagine the two most likely responses are:
CS Player #1: You could play deathmatch in Half-Life?
CS Player #2: I play this Counterstrike thing all the time, but what the heck is Half-Life? It didn't come on my Counterstrike CD I bought at CompUSA!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I second that motion! Man, was that awesome!
take your tripe to kuroshin
Is it just me or are they actualy porting HL1 to source? In that case, I might just re-visit Black Mesa
./R My blog
There will be mods. I know DOD will be out for HL2. I'm sure DM people will do a DM mod, and we'll see the usual Rocket Arena and Jailbreak.
Don't worry kids.
I really enjoy DM, but I've never understand what people see in Counterstrike. The games are always over too quickly, you seem to spend more time sitting around waiting for it to restart than actually getting out there and putting bullets in heads...
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
That's odd because in the stolen builds and in the "beta" there was HL2 DM Multi-Player.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
At least id created 4 new MP maps etc, even if multiplayer is still buggy, and a Q3 rehash. Valve just "sourcified" a community mod's gameplay and map content with no, or little, new material. The dynamic duo certainly took a pass on multiplayer this generation.
Is it the original half-life game but using the source engine to run it rather than the original engine ?
chris at darkrock dot co dot uk
http colon slash slash www dot darkrock dot co dot uk
modDB is saying that DoD will also be included on Steam. Yay/nays?
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Quake IV will be mainly single-player
Do you have a reference for this? I was under the impression that Q4 would follow in the footsteps of Q3 and be mainly an online experience--basically the real Doom3 multiplayer.
A lot of people whinge about single-player games, but I usually prefer them - I'm pretty crap at multiplayer stuff, as there's always that perfect-shot teenager with nanosecond reflexes waiting to kill me time after time.
Many "real" games have the concept of handicaps to level the playing field for players. ISTR Q3A has some kind of handicapping capability but I haven't ever seen anyone actually use it. Do other games have that concept and actually use it? (Beyond the handicapping of the game itself via difficulty levels, of course.)
You'd think obscenely good players wouldn't mind using that, since it would provide more of a challenge and extra things to boast about.
Bah, the fact that there is no learning curve in UT2004 is one of its weakest points. There's no challenge after a while. Try a game like Enemy Territory, which even after playing the six same damn maps for over a year only gets more interesting.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
...where's the SOURCE I would like to ask you?!
It figures they would pull some garbage like this. First they claim that having their source stolen causes massive delays in getting a working product.
Now it's looking like they are making CS craptastic.
Meh. There's a reason why I don't care that this game is getting released. Maybe I'll play it after it's out for a year.
congratulations you are now part of the problem never post under my name again unless you are gonna grow the balls to identify yourself like every other worthwhile poster on here does
What, the gold stream package is a lot better then the collectors edition! That bites, I hoped that there was going to be a soundtrack cd in the collector's edition.
So it looks like the retail collector's edition buyers are getting the shaft, the only bonuses for the collector's edition is the DVD(good), HL1 and CS Source (good), a sampler book(blah, they usually turn out to be a few crummy magazine quality pages, and you have to buy the real book anyway), and a t-shirt (blah, I would preferred a soundtrack cd, or the other source versions). I say the collector's edition failed to live up to the "lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff" claim.
The stream version lives up to this claim: Day of Defeat: Source, Valve's back catalog currently available on Steam, Complete Strategy Guide from Prima Games, 3 different Half-Life 2 posters, Half-Life 2 hat, Half-Life 2 postcard, Half-Life 2 stickers, Half-Life 2 Soundtrack CD, Chance to win a trip to Valve. Not having the official DVD and having to download the games is the only downside I find with the stream version.
And all the exclusive stuff the collector's edition buyers get in comparison to the Gold is a DVD copy, a sampler of the book, and a t-shirt. The shirts might as well say "I paid for the Half-Life 2 Collector's Edition and all I got was a crummy t-shirt."
So I really hope that they offer the other merchandise in the gold package for separate purchase, I can see lots of people wanting to buy the HL2 merchandise but not wanting to buy the stream Gold edition. I will probably get the collector's edition anyway, I prefer having a physical copy and want to have it as part of my game collection.
Check out Halo2. Multiplayer co-op is it's strong-suit. Halo was a phenominal game ... and from the previews of Halo2, it looks to be a worthy follow-up.
- - - -
Posting as an AC 'cause the stupid SD protection thinks that my subnet floods the system with bad posts...
When will we see Blue Shift: Source?
This month's PC Gamer (November 2004), 10 page Quake IV exclusive - it is following in Quake 3's foot steps, in that it's going to be deathmatch, deathmatch, deathmatch. The vehicles from single player won't make it across, as I'm reading:
So what about multiplayer? We're told to have no fear. Our goal is to re-create the Quake III:Arena experience in the new engine," Willits tells us. "We're going to deliver more than four players [Doom3's multiplayer max], no matter what."
Some might hear those words and feel glum that Quake IV is not promising any kind of multiplayer revolution. But I'd say "Not so fast" - Arena-style multiplay in Carmack's latest engine sounds like plenty of revolution to me. The primary multiplayer experince mode are expected to be the Arena staples of Deathmatch and team capture-the-flag...
There are currently more than 300 HL2 mods listed on moddb.com. Probably half of them won't make it to Beta release, but 150 mods still sound good enough ;).
Looking at the package offer details, Valve is also going to release DOD:S, which is now a more popular multiplayer game than TFT.
There are co-op mods for it. They are still early in development though so they have issues from what I read.
I like co-op as well! I heard the upcoming Splinter Cell game will have it included in the game!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I play UT2004 daily, and it's even more fun when custom maps are played, and with the new vehicles it's a hoot.
I just wish they would overcome that 32 player limit. I miss the days of Playing Wolf:ET on a 64 player map(chigc.com ruled for that). It was a full-out war. With some of the larger(10 meg) maps, UT would even be more fun with it.
That the game will release next week. Thats the "answer" to all the release questions on their forums.
Could be wrong though
I mean, when "exclusive" interviews with a guy who is just REVIEWING the game are something to brag about...
BWHAHAHAH HAHAH AHHAHAHAHHA
At least I don't hear anything (yet) about a WWII mod. The next person who tries to shove D-Day/WWI/WWII/Vietnam, or any derivative thereof down my pants will recieve a severe beating culminating in years of painful, painful torture.
Have you played CS:S? It is an absolutely incredible online multiplayer experience. There is still only one (official) map available but no person of my peer group who has tried it has been able to stop playing. (I believe my house has racked up 60-70 hours on our friend's XFire account in the last week, on CS:S alone.)
I never played the original CS, and am only partway through HL1, but I am hooked as well. I tried to go back to UT2k4 recently, and although my CS experience greatly improved my score it was clear to me that it is not half the online game that CS:S is. I felt like I was watching Dora the Explorer instead of Stanley Kubrick, or eating Egg McMuffins when I could be munching on Eggs Benedict.
Valve has a brilliant and untouchable product on their hands.
Woo hoo! Another way for VALVe to make money. Remember guys that you only get Counter-Strike: Source for free when you buy the collector's edition. Anyways, I never like Half-Life multiplayer because I'm an avid Counter-Strike player. Learn how to make your own Counter-Strike, Half-Life or Steam server: www.hlds101.com
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
NOW, of ALL times, is the time to compete with Epic and UTk4.
Why you say? Because Epic has gotten fat, lazy and arrogant. They BADLY need the competition. All you have to do is investigate the whole "Standard server list" bullshit they've been pulling with mutators to know why.
Epic does NOT care about normal gamers. They cater only to the "pro" gaming (snort) community who want all the weapons weakened and dumbed down to the same level. They are catering to the people who whine and cry about mutators, so they block out any servers running mutators with the on-by-default standard-server filter.
If there was EVER a time for someone to stand up to Epic, it is NOW. Pity ID Software couldn't be bothered.
As an active mod developer for ut2004 and an experienced programmer, I've gotta say that not releasing their own multiplayer looks pretty damn bad. I was looking forward to getting to know the source engine, but now I'm worried. Do all mod developers have to build net-play off a really small code-base? Or are there a wealth of tools? It seems the former would be the case...and in the absence of openly provided Valve Multiplayer code, new people/modders are at the mercy of Valve and their existing mod-team relationships (DoD, CS) to open source their mods. I HOPE that HL 1: Source will be open sourced and include multiplayer and thus be a tutorial/starting point for developers.
UT2004's breadth of functionality with multiple gametypes and a scripting language (though it is quirky) really helped the mod community...not to mention their commitment to tutorials. I hope Valve provides the same level of support.
Take a look at the third entry under "Processor Vendor" at the Half-Life 2 Hardware Survey.
Looks like this isn't the only place where that's a valid poll answer.
--
Read the guide, then get yourself a free iPod.
It may occur to you, then, that perhaps most of the people who have no interest in CS:S have played the original? And, seeing that there's little more than a graphical update between it and the original, perhaps people were looking for a little more, y'know, innovation in the years they've spent on the title?
UT2k4 isn't particularly stellar, but it has a variety of gameplay types and several mods which are fairly new and interesting. I'd prefer to play it than Valve's rehash of CS.
Schlock Mercenary
my sympathies to your karma...
Half-Life 2 will be a single player game that'll keep me entertained for a few days and a rehash of a crappy multi-player game that people have been playing a beta of for months. Sounds like a real winner.
And on the flipside, many games have came and gone trying to recapture or reinvent what CS got so strikingly correct, hence a slight rehash of an old game can be massively appealing. Old players see their classic game given a much needed face lift and new players get to discover the classic gameplay formula in it's more or less pure form.
Do we need to change chess every year with some new fangled feature to make it a good game again? I'm just saying there is a reason CS has such incredible staying power with so many failed imitators lying in a broken heap next to it.
It's even rather silly to do deathmatch and CTF modes since you're competing part-time (effort-wise) against huge multiplayer-only franchises like UT and Battlefield. Yes, it'll get vocal whining from the fringe people who like the uniqueness, but from the average gamer's perspective, the overall product has been improved. Polish the holy hell out of a proven, massively popular game mode.
All the smart FPS companies have come to this conclusion. Focus on either single player -or- multiplayer. And in the case of Valve, they've got a wildly successful single player game with a unique and wildly successful multiplayer mode. Why screw around with subpar implementation of same old same old.
These days, it's all about spending your effort wisely. Kudos to Valve.
Easy, buddy. Be cool, man. You're right. Slashdot sucks. The mods are often 12 years old. It's outside of your sphere of influence, though. There's no need to get angry. If you're gonna write a long post, type it up in a word proccessor, spell check it, and cut'N'paste her. That way, when /. throws up all over your browser, you still have your text, nicely formatted, ready to re-submit.
And another tip, if you have some off the wall shit to say that you think an 12 year old would not understand, post it AC. It's inevitably gonna be modded down, unless you can get some logged-in posters to vouch for it. All that shit you just spewed while logged-in lowers your karma 'till all your posts start at -1. Looking at your posting history, I don't think you can crawl back from -1. Basically, you should only post logged-in if you're certain it will be modded up.
You had a first post, you coulda scored big points had it been on-topic or interesting. But you blew it, and your sebsequent replies to it only made it worse.
In summation, jms258, YOU FAIL IT.
AI in games can only go so far.
No, AI in games has only gone so far. The sky is the limit, pal, just you wait.
* Bronze -- HL2* and CS:Source.
* Silver -- HL2*, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source*, Day of Defeat: Source*, Valve's back catalog currently available on Steam.
* Gold -- HL2*, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source*, Day of Defeat: Source*, Valve's back catalog currently available on Steam, Complete Strategy Guide from Prima Games etc
I believe Day of Defeat is MP, this would be a strong argument for buying this game over steam.
Let me know when the box is on the shelf.
I know people are going to be annoyed at me saying this, but I just find that it isn't necessary for a good game to include both multiplayer and single player support. Given the amount of work it takes to release a good video game these days, I believe it's more important for game developers to now focus on either MP or SP play.
Take Doom 3 for example. It's a pretty good Single player game, but the multiplayer mode was really an afterthought. I'm really not going to consider playing multiplayer Doom 3 for a long period of time when there are so many other games out there that excel in that area. Likewise, Battlefield 1942 is a terrible single player game; no one expects it to be a good single player game. However, it's an excellent multiplayer game, because that's what the original design was focused on.
I believe the days of an awsome multiplayer and single player experience in one game package are over. It doesn't bother me at all.
The only weakness I see in today's games is lack of good co-op single player support.
I know some people play UT2004, but it's not the wildly successful game you claim it to be, and it's certainly not "scaring off" other developers.
:)
Valve has focused on Counter-Strike Source because, regardless of your fanboy moanings, Counter-Strike is still the most popular online multiplayer game, BY FAR. Why would they waste time on doing some crappy deathmatch when they've got far more successful products to develop?
In addition, there aren't many deathmatch multiplayer games coming out because they're not fun. They've been beaten to death. Quake3 and UT were only mild successes. I bought Quake3 the day it came out, but hardly ever played it multiplayer. When I tried, it was hard to find servers with people on them, particularly for the mods that seemed interesting.
Most companies wanting to do multiplayer games right now are trying to go the route of far more lucrative and "new" (hard to say original) massively multiplayer online RPGs, with monthly fees. No one wants to be stuck with a successful game with a large and loyal fan base who continue expecting regular updates and bugfixes despite the company no longer receiving money to do so.
I think the move to specialized well-done multiplayer games over the reliance on mods to fill out a contentless game engine is a great move for the gaming industry. I think games like CS:Source, UT2004, BF1942, and I expect before long, Team Fortress 2, are a better style of games than MMORPG.
I still have yet to plunk down 50$ for a game that I have to keep paying another $10-$20 a month to keep playing though - I don't want to feel like I'm paying for every hour whether I'm playing the game or not. I *already* spend too much time playing games online
I do agree a HL port to the Source engine was a good idea, but is it me, or is it likely this only delayed the game further?
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Does the Half-life 2 hat come in the shape of a chicken carcass?
*screech*
Action Quake 2 is still thrice the game that Counter-strike ever will be.
(wanna talk about rehash...)
Relax, it happens all the time. And of course, if you dare mention it you are 'trolling', it's the only way that the mod junta can keep dissent in line - punish those who complain as an example to others :)
Seriously though, I know how annoying it is when posts just 'disappear'. It's happened to me a few times after I've written epic posts... nowadays I make sure to just Ctrl-C anything of length that I write in case it all goes belly-up when I click 'submit'.
As for the mods... if you want a real laugh write something thoughtful about how Apple is an ordinary company that wants to make money just as much as Microsoft does, and watch the mod-censors move in with ruthless efficiency and terminate you, while every reply disputing your claims receives '+5 insightful'.
Read Pynchon.
I believe Apple is an ordinary company that wants to make money just as much as Microsoft does.
I dispute your spurious claim! Apple is not an ordinary company, and they certainly don't want to make as much money as Micro$oft does!