Boomtown Interviews Doug Lombardi

[Axyon]

Gaming network Boomtown has recently gotten the chance to interview Doug Lombardi, Valve's Public Relations Manager. They mainly cover the recent development of Source upgraded Half-Life addons and mods, as well as the actual game itself.

“Converting the games actually went very fast. We spent about three weeks on it and developed tools in the process that can handle most of the work themselves. Ragdoll-physics and the likes are practically handed to us on a plate by switching to the new system”

The interview goes on to mention that Counter-Strike: Source will be recieving some new maps, and from then on they will concentrate on expansion packs for Half-Life 2. We also find out that Half-Life: Source won't be recieving the full visual makeup that Counter-Strike will be:

“Actually we haven’t taken Half-Life as far as Counter-Strike. We’ve only converted the basic stuff and the majority of material from Half-Life 2 ending up in Half-Life will mostly be invisible. But from then on it’s actually up to players themselves if they want to alter the content of the game once it’s running on the new engine.”

Offputting news, but it's almost certain that someone will convert the game fully. Be sure to read the full interview here.

 

[Feath]

The Press Release is referring to the fact people have been charged for the leak.

... when the theft of the source code was revealed everything went wrong. By the way several persons have been charged in this case, and we’re hoping to make an official statement to the press within the next couple of weeks.

 

[Axyon]

What press release? I didn't mention no press release. *Shifts eyes*

 

[hinson]

Someone will convert HL to source fully? That means HL: Source will be free?

 

[Dr. Shim]

No, you have to [cha-ching!].

 

[monkeydust]

I wonder if we will be getting higher resolution textures with HL:Source. I really didn't get that impression from reading the interview.

 

[Mountain Man]

It sounds like Half-Life: Source will not be all that different from the original game. I guess they're using the old art content but running it on the new engine. Pity. I was hoping for a complete overhaul. Still, since Doug just gave his permission to mod-makers to do exactly that, I imagine such a project will be inevitable.

 

[hinson]

So why exactly do we have to pay for it? Buy an old game with same graphic but in new engline? I don't quite get it.

 

[Chris D]

I reckon you'll be able to buy a Half-Life: Source package. In it it will contain all of the official mods.

 

[Kadayi]

Hmm...it sounds to me like this is reduxing was a half baked idea that Valve had late at night after one too many beers, but they somehow now feel obligated to follow it through. I'd rather a full conversion than a halfway house, which it appears they are going to produce :|

PS good news about the hackers though

 

[Kifpe]

He he, it's good to be Dane.... (Source: Boomtown DK)... never mind.

Think about through:
Rick: "Hey Gabe, I'm bored . What should I do?!"
Gabe: "I don't know - You could convert HL1 into HL2! - LOL"
Doug: "Hey! We could earn even more money on that!"
Rick: "Is that an 'OK' Gabe...? Pleazzzzz!"
Gabe: "Arh, OK then"
Rick: "Could we end this stupid conversation??"

With this odd joke I mean that I DON'T hope its going to be a "earn more money"- thing...

 

[ferd]

pretty short interview

 

[apfe]

Boomtown is danish!! :E
I am from denmark!

In fact, boomtown is also german and english, but the most known part of the "network" is danish!

I think it is very weird: When anyone outside Denmark talks about Denmark, all danish guys are getting proud... :rolling:

Am I right all you danish guys at this forum? If anyone is here..

 

[Apos]

What the heck does he mean by "the majority of material from Half-Life 2 ending up in Half-Life will mostly be invisible." Invisible? What? If they bring over the headcrabs zombies or the G-Man, they certainly won't be "invisible."

 

[Mountain Man]

^^^
That's his point. They apparently won't be porting the new models into the old game. What he's saying is that most of the changes will be "under the hood" so to speak. The game will look and play more or less the same (I'm assuming the corpses will ragdoll), but it will be running on the Source engine instead of the Half-Life engine.

This tidbit has moved this project from "Awesome! Half-Life on Source!" to "It's cool we'll get the original game, but, really, what's the point?"

 

[Kifpe]

Ja, det med os danskere er ligesom, hvis vi moedes i udlandet. Verden er saa stor og Danmark saa lille - og alligevel moedes vi

Anyway, I'll join Mountain Man #15. I'm not that much "yahoo" anymore about HL:Source but about CS:Source I'm still very "yahoo".

 

[Axyon]

^^^
That's his point. They apparently won't be porting the new models into the old game. What he's saying is that most of the changes will be "under the hood" so to speak. The game will look and play more or less the same (I'm assuming the corpses will ragdoll), but it will be running on the Source engine instead of the Half-Life engine.

That's what I assume he means by 'invisible' - gameplay changes, like physics, movement etc.

 

[Mountain Man]

And now another piece has been added to the information puzzle which seems to contradict what was previously said (par for the course when it comes to Valve, unfortunately). In the "Info from Valve" thread, Valve employee Rick, when asked about the quality of the Source ports, said, "As for CS quality, we are porting the games to HL2 so they will look like HL2 games so yes, we are making sure those games look as good as HL2 (within limits of course)."

So Doug says the differences won't be visible and now Rick is saying that they'll look Half-Life 2 games. I wonder what the truth is?

 

[James Isaac]

They really should have put more effort into Half Life: Source - made the graphics and everything better.

Are there going to be more new features in CS:Source other than new maps? Like, maybe inteligent hostages or something?

 

[Chris D]

^^^
That's his point. They apparently won't be porting the new models into the old game. What he's saying is that most of the changes will be "under the hood" so to speak. The game will look and play more or less the same (I'm assuming the corpses will ragdoll), but it will be running on the Source engine instead of the Half-Life engine.

This tidbit has moved this project from "Awesome! Half-Life on Source!" to "It's cool we'll get the original game, but, really, what's the point?"

It'd be technically impossible for the Half-Life 1 scientist model to ragdoll and be affected by physics without doing a lot of work to it. Surely they'd use models from HL2...

 

[Insert]

Someone mail valve about this?

 

[Play4Fun]

so ur saying that G-Man in HL:Source wont have the cool eyes and the awesome face motions like in HL2??

 

[Chris D]

No, I'm saying for the physics to work you'd need to change all of the models - in other words - the ones from HL2.

 

[thedarkangel]

It'd be technically impossible for the Half-Life 1 scientist model to ragdoll and be affected by physics without doing a lot of work to it. Surely they'd use models from HL2...

It's actually quite possible... The old models were created with skeletal animations, remember? They just use the skeleton and viola. There ya have it.
If you don't believe me, I seem to remember a leaked Half-Life Source that came with the rest of the leaks.
Anyway, they shouldn't charge anything above 20 bucks for this trash if all it's going to be is the old game on the new engine.
It's not that it's a bad idea. I would really love to play Half-Life with the new engine, but if they're going to continue to milk it without even putting a little bit of effort into upgrading the game they will lose most of the respect that they have, just recently I might add, regained from me.

I seriously hope that they realize they can't sell these games alone at a bargain price. Their best bet would be to contain all the mods upgraded without any new material in a bundle and sell it for around 20 to 30. Anything else is rediculous.

 

[polyguns]

if it only took 3 weeks for them to port all of these to source, then it shouldn't take more then 2 months for a good mod team to do it, well unless you can't import all the hl skelatal animations and reexport them to source, but then again, if you can't do that, then why did they say you could easily port hlmods to hl2?, unless you have to do a new rig setup for it

 

[Mr. Redundant]

nothing new really, but cool nonetheless, thanks

 

[Mr. Redundant]

It's actually quite possible... The old models were created with skeletal animations, remember? They just use the skeleton and viola. There ya have it.

If you don't believe me, I seem to remember a leaked Half-Life Source that came with the rest of the leaks.

yep there was a leaked port for hl1 when the leak came out, and it was all normal hl models with ragdolls

edit: oops double post sorry

 

[UKchaos]

So it appears the source theivers have actually been caught. Wonder what sentence they get...

 

[Murray_H]

So it appears the source theivers have actually been caught. Wonder what sentence they get...

Probably: The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Oh you meant it in the judicial sense :burp: