I'm not seeing much improvement

[Duck Twacy]

The game still looks mostly the same to me. What am I missing?

[MASTAN]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI9aSFHJRO0
https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/290930/manuals/HL2_Update_Brochure_Steam.pdf

[Duck Twacy]

The improvements aren't that significant. And the game plays fast enough that you don't really notice it. I guess every now and then I see some kind of improvement, but otherwise it looks like the same game.

[Filip Victor]

Originally posted by Super Mickey:

The improvements aren't that significant. And the game plays fast enough that you don't really notice it. I guess every now and then I see some kind of improvement, but otherwise it looks like the same game.

What would you like to see in the upcoming version? (note that I don't aim for doing remakes/complete overhauls)

[Duck Twacy]

There's a new version coming? I think I would have preferred to see the game's story wrap up in an EP3.

I guess maybe some brighter maps with more of an adventurous tone as opposed to bugs, caves and dark places. To be honest I disliked Alyx as an NPC trying to buddy up to me all the time.

Honestly, now that hardware's improved since this game was first released I'd like to see larger maps. FarCry came out sorta kinda in the same time frame of this game, and has huge expansive maps that you can fully explore. I wondered why this game didn't have the same thing. I mean I guess it takes time, money and people to make buildings and areas on a map, but unless I miss my guess, the Vavle and Steam people have far more financial resources than the FarCry people. So.... I'm not sure what to say on that account.

HL2 has a real grim tone to it. That verse the original HL which was just a game where you shot stuff and solved puzzles, and then had some action music when things got hot and heavy. I kind of miss that.

If you're just going to improve this game, then maybe give some smarter combat moves to the friendly AI. The enemy human AI look and act like SWAT team members, and take firing stances and the like. It might be cool if the friendly AI would duck behind rocks or maybe cower for a little bit before mustering some courage to fire back. Stuff like that.

Visually ... I don't know. I think the game has gone as about as far as it can go, or at least it has to my eyes. Sharper skins, to me, only go so far. I'm using an ultra wide monitor with a GTX 1070 with native 2500 res, and to me the new textures look about the same as the old ones. Maybe a bit sharper, but like I say the game plays fast enough that you don't really notice too many of the texture improvements. Sometimes you do, but I thinki overall it doesn't register. At least it didn't register with me.

Having said that it might be cool or interesting to let the players see Freeman see himself in a mirror or reflective surface.

I can't think of too much else to improve the old game. Maybe bring back some of the other scientist NPCs from HL as background NPCs. Maybe include Doctor Rosenburg from Blue Shift, but aged like all the others. I don't know really.

There's that mine cart on the slope with the spinning blade after the Ravenholm and cavern levels. Giving it some more realistic movements would be cool. And giving Gordon Freeman hands on the rungs of a ladder might be interesting ... though that might not allow him to fire his weapon while climbing a ladder, or at least take away the illusion that he can do both.

Maybe add someway to carry more stuff on the dune buggy go cart. Maybe there's a space where you plop a medical pack or two, and carry them until you need them. I don't know.

What you never see in any game is water dripping off a player character. Maybe when Gordon Freeman is travelling the sewers or industrial waste waster in the boat, and goes for a swim, maybe you can add water cascading off his arms or something.

I can't think of too much else. I'm not a big Half Life 2 fan. I didn't like Alyx (still don't), the maps were relatively confined and not fully exploreable, and just had a different almost hopeless tone to it as you travelled the caverns, Ravenholm, the prison, the mental hospital, and all the rest. I guess that's why I almost prefer EP2 to this game, because you have that climatic battle outdoors at the end of the game. I like the outdoor stuff.

I don't know if that helped any, but those are my thoughts.

[GlitchyReal]

Half-Life 2: Update is mostly for polishing the game using a more up-to-date version of Source, minimizing bugs, and maximizing compatibility for contemporary machines.

What you've described is more akin to a remake or overhaul mod which is outside the scope of this project.

(btw, I'm not an official source, just a fan and follower of HL2:U.)

[Filip Victor]

Such changes are large scale. The bottom line is that you would be better of remaking the whole game from ground up. Adding different stuff on the same design style would just split the fan base and large changes could turn up bad. At least with the upcoming workshop support you should expect bunch of changes from user generated content that would run separate, so that's something rather than nothing.

[Duck Twacy]

Well, you asked :)

I guess my only real beef is the game itself. It plays fine, looks okay, but is kind of dark visually and in story. It seemed too much like some Hollywood screenwriter trying to be clever with the HL story, and just getting it wrong on every level.

[finlandslim]

Originally posted by Super Mickey:

Well, you asked :)

I guess my only real beef is the game itself. It plays fine, looks okay, but is kind of dark visually and in story. It seemed too much like some Hollywood screenwriter trying to be clever with the HL story, and just getting it wrong on every level.

It's clear the game just isn't for you. I can say that if it had "birght open world maps" like in Far Cry as you've said, it wouldn't leave such an impact like it did when it came out in 2004. HL1 also was very grim and it had stroy telling, just done in a different way.

[VVakba]

If HL2 is grim, just wait to see what was intended with the beta version.

https://i.redd.it/e2o5vea4tnv51.jpg

[Scary Busey]

Originally posted by Wakba:

If HL2 is grim, just wait to see what was intended with the beta version.

https://i.redd.it/e2o5vea4tnv51.jpg

I'm so glad they didn't go with that grimdark concept. Part of what makes HL2 so unsettling is how bright and seemingly normal it is in places, contrasted with things like killer cyborgs and the looming monolith of the Citadel.

[Duck Twacy]

Originally posted by Cuttrogue:

Originally posted by Super Mickey:

Well, you asked :)

I guess my only real beef is the game itself. It plays fine, looks okay, but is kind of dark visually and in story. It seemed too much like some Hollywood screenwriter trying to be clever with the HL story, and just getting it wrong on every level.

It's clear the game just isn't for you. I can say that if it had "birght open world maps" like in Far Cry as you've said, it wouldn't leave such an impact like it did when it came out in 2004. HL1 also was very grim and it had stroy telling, just done in a different way.

HL1 was not dark and grim. Much of it took place underground, but it didn't give you a sense of near hopelessness, nor the overly dramatic NPCs trying to add drama to the story. That more than anything else really put HL2 in a lackluster spot for me.

HL was just a game with a decent story. HL2 tried to be a Hollywood production with lots of voice acting. And instead of being in midland USA we're suddenly in Eastern Europe. Whatever. You can't take it too seriously, but I preferred Battlefield and NOVALOGIC's games to this thing.

So yeah, it isn't the game for me. But I thought I'd say what I thought about it anyway.

[Deus_nsf]

Originally posted by Filip Victor:

What would you like to see in the upcoming version? (note that I don't aim for doing remakes/complete overhauls)

Are multithreaded loadings a possibility? MMOD native integration? AI upscaled textures?

[clark]

Maybe stuff like ragdolls shooting after they die for a few seconds or, make some bloom, head bobbing when running, ragdolls place their hands wherever they get shot whenever they die, metrocops eyes are bright cyan, all combine soldiers glowing eyes deactivate when dying, Cool post effects like the ones from metro 2033 with the broken vision.

[Boff]

Update fixes a bunch of mapping errors that occurred with subsequent "updates" to the engine, so links to lightmaps, cubemaps, became corrupted in Half Life 2 (proper).
HL2 update, was basically recompiling the maps with respect to the new lighting systems. So static props (chain link fences) could cast their own shadows on the lightmaps.

So go boot up HL2, and watch the G-man intro. When you see the interior of the citadel you see these darkened vertical struts running down the walls of the citadel fading off into the distance at regular intervals. These appear "dark" in the current version of HL2 as those models ignore the lighting.
This was not always the case, and they looked differently on release, and this only occurred after the HL2 started to run on the "orange box" version of the engine.

Run HL2 update, and lo-and-behold, those same wall/panel struts in the G-man intro, are now lit correctly because of Filip's hard work bug fixing the lighting issues and recompiling the maps again.

[Duck Twacy]

I didn't notice any significant improvement.