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Total Conversion HL2 Mod

bbzzdd writes "A comprehensive total conversion of the Half-Life 2 game has been released. Crafted by students from SMU's Guildhall, Eclipse is a beautiful change of pace from the average FPS. From the site: 'You play as a young Sorceress named Violet whose father went missing five years back. After learning the secrets of Telekinesis, you are teleported into Auld-Haven, a lush and fertile land where Violet grew up. Your objective is to return to Violet's home where she last saw her father years ago and dig up any clues to his whereabouts. In the broken down tower of her home you discover a journal left by her father. The journal unlocks a handful of secrets that ultimately leads you on a quest to find the ancient teleportation device - the Standing Stones.'"

21 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. The First? by LFS.Morpheus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, the first was Plan of Attack, released over two months ago.

    A total conversion doesn't have change genres, like HL1, CS, TFC, and Natural Selection were also total conversions, and all are FPSs.

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    The space unintentionally left unblank.
  2. *Spoiler* by mogrify · · Score: 4, Funny

    In order to find the Standing Stones, you have to develop a series of Java applications.

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    perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
  3. pretty good by udderly · · Score: 3, Informative

    The screenshots look pretty good--and they're not even /.ed yet!

  4. Wow - that was quick ! - slashdot effect ! by bushboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Managed to get onto the site, 5 minutes later, no longer possible :-

    obligatory google cache link :-

    http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...+&hl=en&st ar t=1

    Download links :-

    http://eclipse.gmwalek.com/viewtopic.php?t=21

    http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/;43287

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    A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
  5. *SPOILER* by Minced · · Score: 3, Funny
    "The journal unlocks a handful of secrets that ultimately leads you on a quest to find the ancient teleportation device - the Standing Stones.'

    Yeah, just to let you know you are going to Stonehenge.

  6. Machima, Game Conversions - just awesome by Fox_1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a big fan of the new paths opening in game development. Sure to some extent you could always modify games as an end user, but when they started to get beyond simple text based MUDs the programming knowledge required began to increase exponentially. Now that the games are starting to standardize on some standard engines at the core, modifying the game becomes simpler through the use of defined APIs and SDKs. This gives us the hacks (aimbots and ilk) that tend to crop up in Multiplayer games, but it also gives us stuff like this program (Eclipse) which was created in 5 months(!), and it gives us the burgeoning Machima world where people are building animated stories using these game engines.

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    The rock, the vulture, and the chain
  7. Yeah but, one big, glaring error by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 4, Funny

    where's the "remove clothes and run nude" button??

    1. Re:Yeah but, one big, glaring error by Council · · Score: 3, Funny

      You jest. But where is the HL2 porn? It's a good physics engine, I'm told, and has realistic people. Or what about all these other photorealistic games I see ads for?

      C'mon, adult industry, use a tenth of the creativity you use in titling your movies and find a way to make a business model for this.

      --
      xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
    2. Re:Yeah but, one big, glaring error by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Funny

      I saw some Doom 3 porn once.

      Or at least, I think I did. There was lots of moaning, but I couldn't really see anything.

      *ba-dum ching!*

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      The enemies of Democracy are
  8. Objective by zephc · · Score: 3, Funny

    As Violet, you must save your father from a collapsing web server before it's too late.

    Whoops.

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    "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  9. Steam mentioned this game a couple of days ago by rawmule · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Steam's weekly update talked about this and another Source Engine mod done by the students at Guildhall, Samurai Legends (same url, but /samurailegends/, link also dead), a couple of days ago. The samurai game was multiplayer and from the screenshots looked very pretty. I couldn't find the link to the Valve page, but I found the relevant text on a bulletin board:

    "Next Saturday, Valve's CEO and founder, Gabe Newell, will be giving the commencement speech at Southern Methodist University's Guildhall, a university program offering course work in game design. Two groups of students enrolled in the program will be releasing the Source MODs they produced during their term."

  10. For the pretty pictures.. by Neoncow · · Score: 5, Informative
    That we're too lazy to look for..

    Coral Cache

  11. Fileshack has it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
  12. Torrent Available by Kalak · · Score: 4, Informative
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    I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by .hack)
  13. Re:Another Crying Game by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting. That must be why more games get ported to Linux than the Mac, because Linux has a bigger desktop share... Oh, wait...

    This is a pititful excuse by game developers who don't want to change their attitudes or outlooks. All that make your game easily portable requires is dumping all the DirectBlah BS and using an API that doesn't make you Microsoft's whipping boy.

    Heck, if the API is inadequate, you could even add a bit to it for whatever it is you needed and release the changes back. It might make it easier to make games, which would make a bigger market, which would probably make things better for everybody.

    As it is, I tend to buy games from small independents (Garage Games, Guild Software, Introversion Software, the list goes on) instead of the big publishers because the game developers who work for them have minds of their own and tend to make Linux versions of stuff. As opposed to people like you who stick their fingers in their ears and chant 'Marketshare' over and over again.

  14. Beautiful, but veryyyy short by SnowCrashed · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very cool concept, and incredibly lush outdoor environments (my 6600GT choked on it at a couple of spots). However, it's only got about an hour of gameplay. Hopefully more will come out of it, the little bit that's there is fun to play.

  15. Let them know! by WidescreenFreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thank you! It's nice to actually see an informed opinion on this mod as opposed to the bullsh*t AC statements about it being "lame" and "gay" from the tards who didn't bother to download it and have nothing better to do apparently.

    I'm looking forward to trying it out myself and at least getting feedback to the team who made it. If they get enough positive responses and suggestions, hopefully they'll do more. Those who do really good and creative mods won't know that their work is appreciated unless we tell them so and as such will probably not make any more under a false impression that no one like what they've done. That would be a shame not only from their standpoint but also from ours since we would no longer get any quality mods from the group.

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    The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
  16. Re:Just one Question by Antimatter3009 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Telekinesis

  17. Re:Menzoberanzan by Oracle+of+Bandwidth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd argue we're still apes in caves, our spears are just semi-balistic now, and our caves are above ground.

  18. Re:third-person? by hunterx11 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    More impressive is the fact that if you stop walking mid-step in Halo 2, your character will actually move slightly as he readjusts into a standing pose. It's a small thing compared to all the bugs Halo 2 shipped with, but we need more things like this in games. Certainly nothing is an funny as the way kneeling characters slide around when they move while crouched in GoldenEye, though :-)

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    English is easier said than done.