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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.
I, for one, don't get much enjoyment head-shotting AI, anyway.
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
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.
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.
Valve didn't really have any multi-player in HL? What about the multi-player everyone played before mods came out, you know the Half-Life mutliplayer that is part of half-life? I played that all the time, I loved killing people with the cross bow.
TFC was actually a first-party mod that Valve released in an apology to the fans who bought the game in anticipation of Half-Life: Fortress. just about everything else, though, was third party.
and the game did ship with vanilla deathmatch. which was decent fun but nothing to write home 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/
TFC was not a 3rd party mod. It was created by valve as a platform to test a lot of the stuff that was going to go into Team Fortress 2 (such as the netcode). Obviously TFC isn't really a testing platform anymore for TF2, but that was its original intent.
Maybe you had a different version of the game than I did.
In MY Half Life I could run the game, click multiplayer, and kill people in the HL game, in HL maps, with HL weapons, and HL skins.
What were you playing?
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Valve didn't really have any multi-player in HL either
How does this stuff get modded up? The original Half life *DID* ship with multiplayer deathmatch. and it was pretty fun too.
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!
That's very opinionated. The single player for half-life was revolutionary, and the single player for half-life 2 will more than likely be good in its own right.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
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.
If by "3rd party mods" you mean Valve hiring John Cook and Robin Walker of TFS (TeamFortress Software), and having them (as well as other employees I'm sure) create TFC to be published by Valve...
...well 'nuff said.
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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
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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?
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.
Indeed, it was fun! Valve has this nasty habit of just dropping support for anything that isn't really popular. TFC and HLDM are barely upkept now that CS is so popular.
I find this really disappointing because I was looking forward to HL2DM, although it should come as no surprise - since CS is popular, why should Valve bother enhancing anything else?
If you say "here goes my karma" I will bite you!!!
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.
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.
I mean, when "exclusive" interviews with a guy who is just REVIEWING the game are something to brag about...
I played the original with a modem where I could consistently get 170 pings in Quake 1 (true pings not bullshit new CS pings) and got a 600+ ping in HL.
It was kind of fun, but the play balance was really wonky, most servers banned the Egon (they even had a special nickname for it) and almost all the weapons were instant kill.
I'm not saying tha Quake one had better weapon balance but the maps were set up in a way which minimized this inefficiency (DM4, DM6, DM2, and E1M2 are perhaps the most definitive maps ever made. They defined how a multiplayer map should play).
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.
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.
Nobody played it; that was the point. Half-Life multiplayer is dominated by Day of Defeat, Counterstrike, etc. Back when HL came out, Quake 3 was the big multiplayer thing (until Unreal Tournament came out). Mods are what HL multiplayer is known for.
This is a non-issue. Modders will easily come up with a "Deathmatch Classic" mod, if Valve doesn't first...just like Doom 3's limited four-player has been expanded by modders. There's already an HL2 coop mod. I guarantee at least five mod groups have started work on a "Deathmatch Classic" mod after reading this news.
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.
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.
Nobody played it; that was the point.
Plenty of people played it.
Half-Life multiplayer is dominated by Day of Defeat, Counterstrike, etc. Back when HL came out, Quake 3 was the big multiplayer thing (until Unreal Tournament came out). Mods are what HL multiplayer is known for.
Hahah, this is so funny. Really, I'm not trying to flame anyone, but do you even know what you are talking about? First off, "Back when Half life came out" was in October of 1998. Unreal tournament AND Quake 3 came out in October/November of *1999*. Half life had a full year with no competition from those games. And your statement that Quake 3 was the big thing until unreal tournament came out makes no sense since UT came out a MONTH earlier than Q3!
This is a non-issue. Modders will easily come up with a "Deathmatch Classic" mod
That is great. Some of us expect certain features out of the box though. Also, while the mod community has proven it can produce great mods (counterstrike), it makes plenty of shit too. Leaving a feature as critical to a FPS as multiplayer to the mod community isn't a good idea. I realize the focus of the original half life was single player, however there are a lot of players like me who are interested in just multiplayer, and buy FPS games only if they have multiplayer.