6 Years For Half-Life 2 Yeah right

[OCybrManO]

Half-Life 2 : Peanuts' revenge

The end boss for HL2 will be Charles Schulz's ghost!!!

Just imagine the incredible dirt/dust cloud effect around Pigpen that they could make with DX9 shaders!

 

[SubKamran]

Yah, of course I believe it. They had so much going on...I can understand that, it's not too hard to believe.

 

[booogerhead]

just got done reading through this crapfest of a thread, and all i can say is.. hahahhaahhaaha

Headline News:

Computer Games Not Real, Noobs in Shock!

sorry, i can't get over that one

 

[UltimaGecko]

I was under the assumption that you knew about the Newell quote and were looking for a reason why it would take 6 years; not if it took 6 years.


Replying to the mapping remark: I must still be using an older Zoner's compiling tools, since I still get the 'light through entities' stuff (I think there's supposed to be a flag in the properties box for it or something...I should probably read a bit about that.

All of my information was directed at the out of the box Half-Life and problems it had (whicht I guess you could say, having the light.txt not work properly on everyone's machines in there too - think that was a problem with qrad...seems to not be on most people's computers though).

I love mapping for HL too. Hammer is one of the easiest editors around. It's fairly easy to put in models, sprites, sounds and sound effects; while the level geometry creation is still pretty easy. The only game that is similarily easy to create levels for is Unreal Tournament and UnrealED (I could never get the texture lights to work in there...ever, aha). Once you get to modern games and meshes and stuff...bah. They make me angry .

[I'd also like to point out in my earlier responses that my references to D3 were in a comparrison to their development time and new technolgical achievements - you could just as easily replace Doom 3 with Stalker, and change the lighting engine to...real world terrain with freeform gameplay and in-depth AI for creatures out of the player's range....or something.]

 

[Sephiroth299]

Took longer cause of their source code stolen? You ever think of that?


Sry if this was already mentioned.. dont feel like going through all the pages.

 

[Varsity]

every time you spam, god kills a pixie.


Please, think of the pixies. :|

 

[kidrock450]

Well CA took time to make the Rome total war engine from scratch which is more complex then HL2 I suppose. They have been working on it since MTW was released which was in 2000 so yeah I think it is possible for HL2 to be in the works for 6 years.

 

[Kangy]

Plus, HL2 has got an absoloutely huge universe. Unless Laidlaw had everything written, and put into a format the level designers, modellers etc. could work with at the time of Half-Life, it'll have taken him a good 6 months at least to do this to the level of detail I expect from Valve and HL2.

Add in the building of Source, then actually making the game, and you're pretty much on with 6 years of work.

 

[Ermac]

How do you know? have you played the final version of Doom 3?

nah, but like i said ived played both games in beta versions. And in HL2 the physics was very interactive to the MAX. And in doom 3 it wasent. And doom3's physics was not as accurate as hl2s.

 

[Cypher19]

I repeat, ALL shadows and light detail is created in real time.

Yeah, like I said, perpixel lighting shaders and shadow volumes!! I completely understand what you mean by the complete lack of any light maps, but I don't think you understand that I have seen most of what Doom3 has to offer in other games as well, including but not limited to Far Cry (which ALSO has per-pixel lighting up the wazoo, and has shadow volumes, and some even more advanced stuff like the selfshadow bump map) and Half Life 2 (no shadow volumes, but the lighting is there), and ALSO in several tech demos, where I have seen shadow volumes (with multiple light sources!)

And someone else even mentioned this stuff has been done before. Hell, even the "perpixel hit detection" model can be done by raycasting and colliding with an object!

Trust me, Doom 3 does NOT have a whole lot added to the table that I and a lot of people have not seen before. In fact, I think the whole reason behind everyone being so impressed by it is that so many parts of the environment are not lit, creating an extremely dramatic difference between lit and unlit areas, which is what's impressing a lot of people.

 

[Nick1814]

it didnt take 6 years. I know

 

[ComradeBadger]

No beta talk please.

 

[RoguePsi]

it didnt take 6 years. I know

Hi Gabe! Hows it going? :dozey:

 

[MiccyNarc]

nah, but like i said ived played both games in beta versions. And in HL2 the physics was very interactive to the MAX. And in doom 3 it wasent. And doom3's physics was not as accurate as hl2s.

The leaked HL2 stuff was not a beta. How many times does this have to be said?

 

[Shuzer]

The leaked HL2 stuff was not a beta. How many times does this have to be said?

The stolen build of HL2 was not a leak. How many times does this have to be said?

 

[SubKamran]

The stolen build of HL2 was not a leak. How many times does this have to be said?

Millions. :|

 

[poseyjmac]

water gets stolen from a cracked jar by gravity. yet it is still a leak!

 

[Asuka]

do you really think it took almost 6 years to make this game i doubt it what do you guys think .

Yes.

If you write an engine from near scratch.

Which they did.

Of course it did.

They built a new game engine from scratch. That kinda thing takes a while. Then they started building the game for DirectX 7 hardware, then re-did the content for DirectX 8 then re-did the content for Direct X 9.

In the meantime they supervised Gearbox make Opposing Force, Blue Shift and HL for PS2. They got Gunman Chronicles released. Supported the mod community massively. Updated HL1. Created Steam. Created Powerplay (that failed). Took over Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.

That sounds more like 10 years of work if you ask me.

omg HL2 is teh rushed!!111

haha so true.

 

[Logic]

Just in response to Billbo's argument that the source engine was NOT written from scratch, because it uses pre-existing technology... by that logic, if you're going to take "from scratch" so literally, Valve would have had to invent computers in order to have made it from scratch. They would have also had to invent the English language. For that matter, in order to truly make something "from scratch" you would first have to invent the universe.

In context, it can accurately be said that the source engine was created from scratch. It's a term that relies on limitations of context, or else it becomes completely useless. In the context of programming, if you open up a compiler (or notepad, if you're a n00b programmer with a command line compiler, like me ) and type up some code for a game of pong, you can be said to have "written it from scratch" even though it's most likely that every line of code you've used has been done before, and there is nothing at all new about the game. If, however, you opened up someone else's code that already had a 2d engine, and some ball movement\collision calculations, and used that to make your game of pong, you didn't make it from scratch.

Clearly valve didn't just modify their original code for HL2.. the source engine is not built on top of HL (essentially quake) code.. each engine component has been completely re-created, coded differently to be capable of more, and to make use of today's hardware. The only outsourced component is the physics engine, and this was simply added to, and modified heavily for, the engine Valve had "created from scratch", while they were working on it. It's not hard to understand how the engine (and the game) could have taken this long to make.. not only are Valve making an engine for their own game, but they're also being sure to make the engine versatile, flexible, and easily moddable. That's got to add a lot of dev time.

Six years may be a long development time when compared to most games, but most games aren't self funded, and as such have publishers cracking the whip to get the game out in as short a time as possible. Valve, after the success of HL, have had the luxury of being able to take as much time as they want on the project, and have obviously decided to release the game when they're happy with it rather than ASAP, to get instant cash. Not to mention the other projects they have worked on in the mean time, which have been mentioned in the thread already.

Rather than apologising for the length of this post, I'll just assume that you won't read it if you don't like it, which is fine by me

 

[kaf11]

Of course it did.

They built a new game engine from scratch. That kinda thing takes a while. Then they started building the game for DirectX 7 hardware, then re-did the content for DirectX 8 then re-did the content for Direct X 9.

In the meantime they supervised Gearbox make Opposing Force, Blue Shift and HL for PS2. They got Gunman Chronicles released. Supported the mod community massively. Updated HL1. Created Steam. Created Powerplay (that failed). Took over Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.

That sounds more like 10 years of work if you ask me.

omg HL2 is teh rushed!!111

end of discussion.

 

[Asuka]

end of discussion.

What he said. ^

 

[Logic]

What he said. ^

Oh, the irony

 

[Asuka]

Oh, the irony

Lol. :dozey:

 

[WaterMelon34]

It took nintendo 7 years to make Zelda : Ocarina of Time so, I'd say 6 years is very probable with HL2. (7 years of making OOT with Nintendo is basicly the equivelent of 12 years with VALVe because Nintendo has armies of programmers and VALVe only has something like 50 employees)

My point here is that 6 years for VALVe to be making the best FPS game ever is actually pretty short given the number of workers.

 

[Cyber$nake]

My point here is that 6 years for VALVe to be making the best FPS game ever is actually pretty short given the number of workers.

what if it's the second best game?

 

[WaterMelon34]

Oh yah, HL1 is best right now...

 

[Asuka]

It took nintendo 7 years to make Zelda : Ocarina of Time so, I'd say 6 years is very probable with HL2. (7 years of making OOT with Nintendo is basicly the equivelent of 12 years with VALVe because Nintendo has armies of programmers and VALVe only has something like 50 employees)

My point here is that 6 years for VALVe to be making the best FPS game ever is actually pretty short given the number of workers.

Wow cool info, didnt know that.

 

[alco]

It took nintendo 7 years to make Zelda : Ocarina of Time so, I'd say 6 years is very probable with HL2. (7 years of making OOT with Nintendo is basicly the equivelent of 12 years with VALVe because Nintendo has armies of programmers and VALVe only has something like 50 employees)

My point here is that 6 years for VALVe to be making the best FPS game ever is actually pretty short given the number of workers.

right...

So they began development on Ocarina Of Time back in 1990? :dozey:

(it was a two-three year development cycle)

 

[kupix]

If you think about it, look at the graphics of the origional halflife then look at the mods that have been released post hl1, and see the graphical change without any change to the engine, that is why i think valve spent more time on the "moddin" aspects of the half life 2 engine so it would be easy enough for the talent of the gaming community to shine!

 

[WaterMelon34]

Yes, they did start making Ocarina of Time in 1990. Like VALVe started making HL2 in 1998...

That was the first 3d Zelda game so they had absolutely nothing to work with other than the story.

 

[CrazyHarij]

They spent half of the time making Source, it's not just HL2.