Half-Life 2: Wars v0.5 Released

Ennui

Ennui

The Freeman
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<div align="justify">The Half-Life 2: Wars team have just released a large update to their Half-Life themed RTS modification, version 0.5. According to their website, the release features "new maps, upgraded AI, and basebuilding for both Resistance and Combine, [and] a whole host of upgrades to the game, such as unit sounds, balance and gameplay tweaks, better visuals, and a lot of other small improvements." The following screenshots are from the release:

[br]<div align="center">
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Short Changelog:[br]
* Two new maps[br]
* Changed to Orange box engine[br]
* Added basebuilding[br]
* Improved stability[br]
* Improved units AI[br]
* Added support for navigation mesh[br]
* Improved balance between units[br]
* Improved various visuals
Click to expand...

The release requires Orange Box to play, and earlier versions of HL2:Wars must be removed prior to installation. Download the EXE or ZIP version of the install files, and visit their website or forums for more information.</div>
 
Always a little weird writing newsposts for things I worked on but hey I have no shame.
 
Wow that looks very impressive. When it's gotten a bit further on I'll give it a proper bash. Good luck to you Ennui though.
 
this mod looks interesting

how exactly is?
 
This is awesome. I played it, and it works quite well. The gameplay is very similar to COH. It's a shame there aren't more maps.

It actually works much better than I expected.
 
yes!! I love this mod, I hope this keeps getting worked on, :D!

<3 Ennui.
 
What do you actually mean by requiring the Orange Box? Like... everything from the package installed? Cause all I have installed is TF2.
 
xlucidx said:
What do you actually mean by requiring the Orange Box? Like... everything from the package installed? Cause all I have installed is TF2.
Click to expand...

Primarily the Source SDK Base - Orange Box needs to be installed (it's on the Tools tab). If you don't have Episode 2 installed there will be some missing content in the maps (textures and such) but it will still work.
 
Lol, the "defend the drop zone" one is impossible! Antlion guards kill everything with one hit. No matter how many mounted turrets I set up and elites I amass, the guards simply plow through everything.
 
Use abilities! It's not impossible.
 
lol, "according to their website [news post]", which you wrote :p

"According to the news post I wrote..."
 
well it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to write it in first person given that HL2net has nothing to do with this mod
 
theotherguy said:
Lol, the "defend the drop zone" one is impossible! Antlion guards kill everything with one hit. No matter how many mounted turrets I set up and elites I amass, the guards simply plow through everything.
Click to expand...

I think the Combine Elite energy balls disintegrate them in one hit, not sure though.

Edit: Yep. Insta-kill. Make sure you leave some resources over after building your units (as they don't regenerate in this mission) so you can use them.
 
Ennui said:
Use abilities! It's not impossible.
Click to expand...

The "abilities" are handled really horribly. If you select a ton of units and target something with an ability, only one of them will do it, and will do it very slowly.
 
Just tried it out, heres are my first thoughts from playing the training level.

- Its weird being able to hear enemies but not see them.
- The AI kept shooting the zombies instead of the nearby headcrabs about to attack.
- The AI made no attempt to back away or dodge close enemies.
- The visibility radius seemed small even for eye sight range.

- I expected the mouse to rotate when near the edge, not to move which you have WASD for, so I had to change pg-up and pg-down to closer keys.

- For the training map, your team should get low health but not die so you learn without having the screen suddenly go black and having to restart.
 
Pretty cool stuff! I'll be interested to see if any more SP maps are made for it. It'd be a shame if it was focused on MP. :( (MP mod #217)

My main gripes:
-The camera doesn't stop at the ground.
-Selecting an individual unit can be tricky.
-Units do wierd things when you order them to attack buildings
-Only one unit will use a special attack when you order a group to do so. This is fine, but it sucks having to wait for that one person to recharge before you can use the attack again, when 10 other units have the ability ready to go. Combine this with tricky unit selection, and I'm often fighting the GUI more than I'm fighting the enemy.
-There no feedback for making battlegroups or what have you(CTRL+ '#')

I'd also reccomend putting a "this structure requires x + x". I was confused for awhile as to why I couldn't build a mounted gun. Also the barracks for stalkers and soldiers could use some uniqueness. I thought they were the same building because of the icons. I was also confused at the beginning because I heard the hunters walking around. I started searching the map looking for the hunters I was supposed to select. :rolleyes: But it is useful hearing the soldiers coming, so I don't think shroud should mean instasilence. Perhaps a visual shroud, and then an "audial-shroud" that extends a bit beyond the normal shroud?

All that stuff sounds like a lot of work though.

I gotta say, pretty fun! I liked how the training didn't hold your hand (SELECT UNITS BY CLICKING AND DRAGGING) so much. Maybe a quick message at the beginning telling you ALT=ROTATE CAMERA, but whatev'.

Still tho', I liked it. :)
 
Ennui said:
well it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to write it in first person given that HL2net has nothing to do with this mod
Click to expand...
Err, I didn't say to write it in first person, why couldn't you just say "the update has _____" instead of "according to their website, the update has _____"
 
Righty ho, I shall give this a go! (Unintentional rhymes I promise)
Just from the screenies it looks fantastic. Whn I'm done, I may even give you some real feedback :D
 
some of the AI getting stuck in a few places would probably be the biggest
grip for me. other then that the game is basically COH
 
The mod is pretty well done so far. Buggy as expected, but well done. Any chances well see a playable antlion and maybe zombie race in the future?
 
All the feedback is appreciated. All of your comments/suggestions are taken into consideration... and as for the bugs, well, all I can say is it's a beta and we're working on it. If you can believe it, the last public release (0.1) was about 100x worse.

NeoNight, unlikely. We're really only planning Resistance and Combine playable races. However if you poke around with the script files you might be able to make them controllable.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed my HL2 Wars experience :D Well, I did after I got the same error 5 times ("No free ent slots"/Something like that), choked down my embaressment, installed Ep2 again, and got myself some cookies.

I was majorly impressed with the speed the main menu loaded up - took me about 5 seconds on 512Ram. However, the levels themselves took an AGE to load :( This is where my cookies came in handy. I'm guessing it's because they're so large and probly have lots of entities in them (levels, not cookies), and because my pc is 4yrs old.

Exceptionally well done :D I found the UI great, the MP3 player useful for those moments when I was amassing my hordes. I found the Vorts really quite hard to take down though, as was anticipated. What I did not expect though was to have to use a ratio of about 12:1 of VariousCombine:Vorts, probably due to player incompetence.

Strangely, the only two 'bugs' of note that I came across were:
1) My NPCs got stuck a few times on rocks and the like,
2) Occasionally, when building Combine Mounted Guns, they would completely ignore the direction I pointed them in, deciding instead to point sort of NorthWest-ish. No matter though, I removed them and placed them elsewhere a couple of times till the were facing the right way.

Things I would like to see in future versions... Hmmm... Maybe a Campaign? The ability to spawn Hunters/Vorts/Special Characters such as Alyx(once per game) would be good too. Also, as a sort of ultimate weapon, a Headcrab Canister launcher/SCUD Missle type thingy would be cool, and probably unbalanced :( More maps! Definately going to have a go at a few myself, but a few more in the standard pack may be desirable. At times, I found the Abilities hard to use, at other times, I found them very handy :)

*racks brains* Anything else? Hmmmm... Oh, yes! Some parts of the UI were affected by my texture quality, obviously because they ARE textures, but I was wondering if they could somehow be kept at a good resolution. I couldn't read them at all till I upped my settings :/

I think that's all, if not I shall edit later,
Thanks for a good game,
Andy
 
This mod is awsome! Kudos! I do not know how to mod, map or model, but this mod has so much potential in my eyes that if could help out in any way, I would!

Buuuuut, here are my griefs and suggestions

* Pathfinding sucks, units get stuck behind rocks and walls way to easy
* The Combine need turrets too, instead of just stationairy guns
* I have a low end rig, so when I try and view the menus (ingame) I can't read it.
* Make it so we can build hunters!
* Combine will some times melee in HL2, if this could be worked in fairly it would be cool
* Make a third army of the Antlions! It could be done, they could be like the zerg in starcraft, easy and cheap to make, but easy to kill
* Thumpers!

And headcrab canisters could work, they would be like the nukes in StarCraft. You would use a special spotter unit (maybe a clawscanner) to find the location, mark it, and then, FWOOM, headcrabs, and it would have to remain in your line of sight to work.
 
Fools, you leave out the most important gripe!

It is "The Combine," not "the Combines."

This mod has limitless potentiaaaal.
 
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