Did Valve waste their time?

[Argyll]

How is it a waste of money? People will buy Half-Life 2 and the mods will (probably) keep it alive just like Half-Life has survived all these years.

People still play Counter-Strike on the Half-Life engine when if they want better graphics, can turn to the other engines (Quake III, Unreal Tournament 2k3+, and pretty much any other FPS out there now).

P.S. WaterMelon34, your sig is huge... I suggest you change it before the Moderators do. It is only supposed to be a maximum of 4 lines. I had mine as 5 and was told to change it.

 

[Chuckstar]

Just one thing... Source is not "based on" the Havok physics engine. Havok is integrated into the engine code, but is only a very small part of the whole thing.

Oops, my bad. :bounce:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

 

[coax]

Please stop wasting everyones time everytime you get a bad feeling.
You saw the new images and made up all sorts of bs on a whim without thinking anything through. So let me sum it up for you;

1. HL2 is not about the graphics formemost, it's about a legendary game called Half-Life, and the story will be continued.

2. Gabe has said that Source ban be updated to support new shaders, and new graphic developments via steam if they choose to do so. That means Hl2 can very well look like Unreal 3 in a couple years.

3. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.

 

[SMT]

Dude this isn't about the stupid screens. I recently saw an Unreal 3 video that almost gave me a heart attack. 100 times more lighting detail than in Ut 2004... One model has more bitmaps, textures, and poly's than a whole map in original Unreal... 10 times more level detail than in Ut 2004... Bump map textures that actually make walls look 3d and very realisticly I might add... Gimme a break, this has nothing to do with the screens!

Maybe Valve delayed HL2 because they found out about Unreal 3?



Valve officially announced the engine took 5 years to make... And Unreal 3's engine is totally made from scratch aswell... And, overall it's only going to take about 3 years to make the Unreal 3 engine. They started 18 months ago and it's coming out in 2006.


I exagerated in the first post, there was nothing really on the physics. BUT STILL! It looks dangerous...

The Unreal 3 engine is not from scratch. Unreal is a modular technology where core components can be swapped out and upgraded with the passage of time. So Epic has actually been working on the Unreal 3 engine ever since... well, ever since they started working on the Unreal 1 engine.

 

[Deadline]

Nice! All I have to say is that is those are the best looking graphics I have ever seen in a game before, and yea, this will definatly be out post-2006 seeing how it ran on the newest Nvidia card.

And like others said, half life 2 is going to freaking rock because of the storyline and the physics and graphics engines that acually RUN on todays top cards as well as the mid and low level ones. Try doing that with Unreal 3 and see how it gets you

 

[Caminante]

The Source engine isn't what will make HL2 great. Looking at todays screenshots and looking over the old media, at this point I'll even go so far to say the Source engine sorta looks like crap. BUT THAT DOESN"T MATTER. And I don't want to argue about it.

Valve's keen sense of gameplay and "what's fun" -- these are the things that will make HL2 great.

Right, but remember that one of the things that people are talking as well as excited the most is the physics engine, not the source engine. Which i belive and correct if i'm wrong, Valve does not own.

 

[Brian Damage]

Valve have a specific implementation of Havok, which by all accounts, is more realistic and less glitchy than others...

 

[Maxi]

Yeah, AFAIK they are the only company to have another companies physics engine (makes it better since all that havok does is physics engines), custome coded into their engine, so with all the evidence we have it's gonna be the best physical experience that we've ever seen in a game so far.

I hope that made some sense.

 

[EVIL]

The Unreal 3 engine is not from scratch. Unreal is a modular technology where core components can be swapped out and upgraded with the passage of time. So Epic has actually been working on the Unreal 3 engine ever since... well, ever since they started working on the Unreal 1 engine.

this is exactly what source is doing.. but VALVe keeps updating thier engine and upgrade Half Life² everytime they have some cool new feature. So I am almost sure Half Life² will look the same as Half Life³ in graphics once Half Life³ is out wich I expect to be within 2/3 years

(they said in the pczone article that they werent going to spend 4/5 years on a new engine for hl3, so exepect source to be the Half Life³ engine to.)

 

[Brian Damage]

It would be cool, wouldn't it, if the appearance of HL2 would evolve over the years...

 

[torso boy]

It took 5 whole years for Valve to make Source and you saw the vids/screens etc. on it. But, Epic, the creators of Unreal, have been making an engine for Unreal 3 for about 18 months and is due out on 2006, in these 18 months of development the graphics look about 5 times better than Half-Life 2's, even the physics look better... Weigh it, 18 months. 5 years.

no they didn't waste their time. They had to write a whole new engine, because if they upgraded it would be from a 5 year old engine. Unreal 3 is upgraded from an engine not even a year old, and is totally unoptimised. Source is able to run on a massive range of pcs (compared to other games). Also, neither company did any physics, and i dont know how youre comparing UE3s physics though, because there have only been 2 physical objects shown in it.

 

[Xenome]

Let's just stop the useless discussions here ; it's all based on speculation.

You should draw your conclusions from reading the magazines: they are all uber-positive, and they say it will potentially blow (for example) far cry away..

When reading their experiences..there's nothing left to conclude then: this is gonna be the best game up to date.

Stop speculating on screenshots and stuff, and stop having godlike expectations...just read magazines and wait until you play the game, THEN decide.

I'm 99% sure this game will really blow our socks off,as valve said

 

[Nostradamus]

actually valve could "easily" make the engine that good, but its all a question about optimisation(eh...) .. vavle want the game to be pretty but able to run an modend machines.. unreal 3 is meant for powow shit, and therefor they didnt hold back on the sweet stuff

 

[Someone]

Let's just stop the useless discussions here ; it's all based on speculation.

You should draw your conclusions from reading the magazines: they are all uber-positive, and they say it will potentially blow (for example) far cry away..

When reading their experiences..there's nothing left to conclude then: this is gonna be the best game up to date.

Stop speculating on screenshots and stuff, and stop having godlike expectations...just read magazines and wait until you play the game, THEN decide.

I'm 99% sure this game will really blow our socks off,as valve said

exaclty. Until games are IN our hands, why bother comparing them? And why would anyone compare a game which will be released in 2005-2006+ to a game which will be released soon? Geez engines get better...of course Source will be blown away in time (tech speaking), but lets play the games and have fun ..screenshots mean little....gamplay is what will "win" out as the original half life proved.

I hope the new Unreal is awesome....but until it's released I'm not going to get too excited over it and I'm surely not going to compare it to a game which will be more than a year+ older when it's finally released.

 

[Xenome]

And why would anyone compare a game which will be released in 2005-2006+ to a game which will be released soon? .

Yes, it's almost getting pathetic :|

 

[Mountain Man]

i think he's talking about development TIME gone into creating the unreal engine. such as "why will this amazing unreal engine be done so much more quickly than Source?"

Unreal 3 is not a whole new "from scratch" engine, it's simply the latest iteration of the Unreal engine that has been a work in progress since the late-90's. Get some perspective, folks.

 

[Crusader]

Wait for official screenshots that valve endorse before having these heart-attacks over how the game looks...