Firearms: Source Hands On Preview by Halflife2.net

Hectic Glenn

Hectic Glenn

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With just over a day left until Firearms: Source releases after 4 years in development, Halflife2.net was lucky enough over the past fortnight to join Dyspatch, his team and their beta testers in playing Firearms: Source for the first time. We spoke with the team earlier in the year who have successfully achieved the aims they set out to do.[br]Alongside our hands on preview is a wide selection of exclusive new media for you to check out. Are you new to Firearms or did you used to play the original mod back in the day? The anticipation for this mod has been huge so head on over to our preview now as we count down the hours till release![br]Firearms: Source will be released tomorrow (23rd July) - you will be able to download the mod by visiting the Firearms: Source website.
 
I actually can't wait for this now.
Looks like it'll be a blast.

Certainly a gun nut's dream come true.
Even though there's silly dual wielding and no iron sights.
 
I don't want to just criticize the article out of the blue but I think it ought to be brought up. This hands on preview does not have much "Hands On". After a quick read, all I came away from this piece is that this is like the original Firearms in that it has lots of guns, only it is on the Source Engine and could (but without personal knowledge of the original FA mod I can not say) include heavy skill changes. Neither is really "better" but some kind of clarity would be preferred.

Glenn, you were given a chance to play a hotly anticipated modification that has been through 4 years of development, a controversial takeover, the making of amends, and now after all this will amazingly see the light of day, and yet your preview reads as little more than a stock press release by the makers themselves. Did you actually get to play? The preview does not seem to really show that. No stories of game play, no interesting anecdotes of what you can achieve with such a modifiable load out, no specifically strong compliments, and certainly no negatives of any kind (which is easily forgivable but it is glaring).

Glenn, give us more. Flex your skills, avoid repeating the same word 2-3 times in the space of a sentence, make this write up as special as the opportunity to play a mod pre-release actually is.

That or give the Hands On Previews to someone who can give the thing its due diligence. A mod 4 years in the making deserves more than the repetition of its own talking points.
 
JossiRossi said:
I don't want to just criticize the article out of the blue but I think it ought to be brought up. This hands on preview does not have much "Hands On". After a quick read, all I came away from this piece is that this is like the original Firearms in that it has lots of guns, only it is on the Source Engine and could (but without personal knowledge of the original FA mod I can not say) include heavy skill changes. Neither is really "better" but some kind of clarity would be preferred.

Glenn, you were given a chance to play a hotly anticipated modification that has been through 4 years of development, a controversial takeover, the making of amends, and now after all this will amazingly see the light of day, and yet your preview reads as little more than a stock press release by the makers themselves. Did you actually get to play? The preview does not seem to really show that. No stories of game play, no interesting anecdotes of what you can achieve with such a modifiable load out, no specifically strong compliments, and certainly no negatives of any kind (which is easily forgivable but it is glaring).

Glenn, give us more. Flex your skills, avoid repeating the same word 2-3 times in the space of a sentence, make this write up as special as the opportunity to play a mod pre-release actually is.

That or give the Hands On Previews to someone who can give the thing its due diligence. A mod 4 years in the making deserves more than the repetition of its own talking points.
Click to expand...

I felt the same when I read the article. I recommend watching the videos on the Firearms website. The mod seems to play a lot like the Half-Life version except with better graphics. I saw a ranking system which I don't remember in the old one. It looks like fun though I doubt it will pull me away from TF2 or CSS for long :-(
 
Where are the unskinned weapon renders? How is this mod going to be delayed if they don't have any unskinned weapon renders?
 
Talk about a blast from the past, I'm gonna have to give this a try. Might set up a server for it.
 
You said the mod will be out on the 31st in the review, but it should be released this Friday, the 23rd. Just thought I'd give you the heads up.

Oh, and JossiRossi, it's very hard to find anything to complain about in the mod.

And yes, he did play it - I remember killing him many times!
 
ríomhaire said:
Where are the unskinned weapon renders? How is this mod going to be delayed if they don't have any unskinned weapon renders?
Click to expand...

They're probably saving them up for a surprise delay on the purported release date.
 
imyour2p said:
You said the mod will be out on the 31st in the review, but it should be released this Friday, the 23rd. Just thought I'd give you the heads up.

Oh, and JossiRossi, it's very hard to find anything to complain about in the mod.

And yes, he did play it - I remember killing him many times!
Click to expand...
Hah! Several times I put the 23rd and I fell at the final hurdle, pfft typical...thank you for pointing that out.

I guess that's why I didn't get a full hands on, spending most of the time at your feet.
JossiRossi said:
feedback.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback Jossi, I'm sorry I couldn't provide more...I did try and touch on the feel of the weapons, how the maps played that we were shown and general gameplay. These kind of things I thought would give an insight into the mod which you can't pick up from the FA:S website. The preview is also a news post of sorts to get people interested and aware.

I don't profess myself to be an excellent writer (or even an average one to be honest), I'm a science student at heart not one of the arts but I love mods and the modding scene which I'm always keen to promote. I've found from my experience with this community is that they don't all avidly track mods through moddb or brush up on the mod's finer details through the official websites, so it is good to cover the main points to familiarise everyone.

I apologise if it felt a little faceless, I do believe I was complimentary to the degree to do justice to Alex & Daniel's work who have been good friends over the years (Well Alex anyway, Daniel holds some kind of grudge). I played the mod on several occasions at the set times provided which was difficult as I've not been round much with other demands in real life pulling me away. Anyway thanks for those pointers I will certainly address some of the issues you quite rightly brought up.
 
I can't wait to unload the MC51B Vollmer onto you mothertruckers!

RATATATATATA!
 
4 1/2 hours to go! :D

edit: And it's out!
Here's to hoping it doesn't suck ass.
 
Runs like ass, insanely long load times, and not very stable.

I think I shall wait until they patch it.
 
Lucid said:
Runs like ass, insanely long load times, and not very stable.

I think I shall wait until they patch it.
Click to expand...

No performance issues here nor any crashes. Must be your system.
 
Nothing for me either, runs really well. Only issue is this server crash bug which Dyspatch told me they had fixed! Must be another issue...they were all in the server with me just now trying to isolate this problem. They said they would be working on it right away.
 
Lucid said:
Runs like ass, insanely long load times, and not very stable.

I think I shall wait until they patch it.
Click to expand...

Upgrade your system?

The only instability people seem to be reporting is the server vomiting everyone out occasionally. But as Glenn said the team has been working hard to fix it.

How's that sound, the team actually patching their game on release day. Now thats dedication :p
 
I've been having client timed out issues since they've released the server patch. I played on patched low ping servers, by the way.
 
Tested on multiple hardware and it doesn't run that great, especially for a source engine game. I have a decent laptop 4GB RAM, Dual Core, Geforce 9700M GT and basically had to place the settings on low.

Runs on high on my desktop, but games like TF2 and CSS get much higher FPS.
 
no headshots, hit boxes are out of whack, some guns are too weak. Poorly made maps.
 
xdrive said:
no headshots, hit boxes are out of whack, some guns are too weak. Poorly made maps.
Click to expand...

Yea, we have some more testing to do to try and fix hitboxes. We are hoping for a quick patch release with some balancing and other basic fixes.
 
The weapon selection UI needs some sort of indicator to establish which weapons are POS that no one uses and which are the overpowered weapons. I suggest a kitten for the POS weapons and a skull for the overpowered ones. (Or an indicator of how many of each weapon your team is currently using) Either way, always seems I unload a clip on someone at close range then they proceed to kill me while doing a dance. I went into this thinking it's an arcade-style shooter and this is obviously not the case.

Also needs pre-configured kits (more than just one "example") as noobs don't want to spend 10 minutes picking a loadout only to find out the weapons they picked are actually water pistols in disguise. Maybe this is already implemented and I just didn't notice.

Also, I couldn't get the weapons to filter properly. ie if I clicked on pistols on the left, I could still see rifles, etc. Seems broked.

Also, the game isn't fun. I demand instant gratification! Let me know when you fix this and I'll give it a second try.
 
TimoJay said:
Also, I couldn't get the weapons to filter properly. ie if I clicked on pistols on the left, I could still see rifles, etc. Seems broked.
Click to expand...

The weapons menu, by default has all weapons groups selected. When you click on one of the weapon groups (ie, pistols) it removes them from the list. I usually just start off by clicking on all the weapons categories to clear out the list and then click the ones I want back on.

M60 ftw.

Mod is entertaining. It feels a bit like CS:S with many, many more guns. There's some balance issues, but it's the first beta so I'm willing to push through it. I just hope there's many small updates, as oppose to Empiresmod's one-update-every-century.
 
TimoJay said:
Also, the game isn't fun. I demand instant gratification! Let me know when you fix this and I'll give it a second try.
Click to expand...

hehehe roger :)


good idea bout the kits btw: I'll bring that up
 
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