It really makes you wonder...

[ShinRa]

Just watched the e32k4 vid again...noticed something rather upsetting. The two strider scenes..when he goes by those 4 colums or pillars or whatever, in both videos when they get blasted they fall in the exact same way. EXACT same way....and it was alledgelly two different scenarios. If it was, why did the 2nd guy seem like he was rushing to get to the columns? Was it so the strider could make his scripted sequence? IE: "Strider is told to destroy columns when player is in this area" And then they exploded and broke away in the EXACT same way, in the EXACT same areas....a bit shady if you ask me...kinda turned me off when i noticed this.. :|

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Do you get annoyed when watching films "Oh man he's so reading lines from a script!!"

All i have to say is NO SHIT DETECTIVE GUINNY

 

[ShinRa]

So how is that fun? How is that anything like what valve said how "95% of the game isnt scripted" Thats not fun knowing when i go back and play the game its going to have the exact same thing happen every damn time.

 

[Beserker]

It's NO SHIT SHERLOCK

 

[ShinRa]

Beserker i know your post was very intelligent and we can all discuss and reflect on your wise words but stay the **** out if you cant talk like a man.

 

[kaf11]

this has been discussed. there are A.I. hints. if they can do something cool, such as blow up part of a building (which is cool), they have the option to do it.

 

[ShinRa]

But have the building fall apart the same exact way every time? thats not cool

 

[kaf11]

i havent watched again, but i imagine a strider shooting out pillars in the same scene will tend to look the same, its obvious.

 

[ShinRa]

no i mean in the two different booths that played the demo out differently.

ati booth: guy goes by pillars and shoots. pillars explode. guy dies (vaporized by strider)

vu booth : guy sticks around for a while, then randomly runs as fast as he can to the pillars, pillars explode (literally exactly, from the point of impact, to the falling of the particles...EXACTLY the same), guy runs around a little more and dies.

 

[Aphal]

I just watched it again and actually a different Strider destroys the columns each time. The physics control how they fall and that isn't really scripted as much as it is identical calculations, so whatever.

 

[hasan]

The way the Strider attacks the building is not scripted .. the problem lies in the destructablity of the world .. you can't run around and destroy every thing .. you have to tell the map which parts can be destroyed.

So, when the strider blasts the building, the explosion is large enough to destroy the pillars .. but they will be destroyed the same way every time.

 

[blahblahblah]

Do you get annoyed when watching films "Oh man he's so reading lines from a script!!"

When you are watching a good movie, you shouldn't notice that the actor/actress is reading from a script. The acting should flow naturally.

Yes, it may be a script, but how often are you going to play that scene? Hopefully not enough to notice that it happens at the same place at the same time. It just happened to be that you were able to notice the scripted sequence. I bet if you played HL2 without seeing that scene, your jaws would probably drop to the ground.

 

[ShinRa]

ur probably right blah, but that doesnt change the fact that it indeed was scripted. sigh...valve over hypes their stuff a bit now that i think about it. i just hope im proven completely wrong in the final product.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Yes, it may be a script, but how often are you going to play that scene? Hopefully not enough to notice that it happens at the same place at the same time. It just happened to be that you were able to notice the scripted sequence. I bet if you played HL2 without seeing that scene, your jaws would probably drop to the ground.

Precisely!

 

[Aphal]

no i mean in the two different booths that played the demo out differently.

ati booth: guy goes by pillars and shoots. pillars explode. guy dies (vaporized by strider)

vu booth : guy sticks around for a while, then randomly runs as fast as he can to the pillars, pillars explode (literally exactly, from the point of impact, to the falling of the particles...EXACTLY the same), guy runs around a little more and dies.

Its more like

1: Strider A and Gordon/civilians fight, gordon runs behind combine APC, strider kicks APC at him, he goes behind the pillars, strider B destroys pillars with laser, strider A fires at gordon with laser and takes half his health, strider B fires laser again at gordon and he dies

2: Strider A and gordon/civilians fight, gordon goes towards the pillars and crouches, strider A lowers and destroys pillars, runs off, strider B moves closer and gordon jumps off the railing, goes into the pit and gets shot by strider B

 

[Asus]

You don't know what the goal of that level or the guy is.
That is a interesting call on something that may not be anything at all.

Maybe they wanted to show us two scenes where he plays it similar but not everything else comes out the same. Of course if he takes the same path the chances of the AI reacting similar is high.
I don't think he hurried up there to match what he did in the previous scene but rather he wanted to cross the level and timed it differently because of where the strider was.

 

[Ahnteis]

Welcome to games. They're not real life.
I haven't watched to check how the building destructs, but we DO know that this is not the geomod engine. You have to set breakpoints, etc for object destruction.

 

[Crusader]

I don't think it's scripted, they don't even have a scripting language in the engine. And how could they lie about that, we'd all see whether it was true when they released the sdk?

 

[Xrenity]

The environment isn't totally destructable (cause else Gordon could skip whole levels). So the thing is that only some parts are scripted to break, so there is some cool action in the game, without making the environment destructable.

I hope you understand what I mean ^^

 

[poseyjmac]

the scripting in hl2 is much more complex and flexible than hl was. if you have talked to people who have used the hl2 hammer editor from the leak or handled it yourself, then you would know.

 

[Ollibolli]

ur probably right blah, but that doesnt change the fact that it indeed was scripted. sigh...valve over hypes their stuff a bit now that i think about it. i just hope im proven completely wrong in the final product.

The scene isn't scripted, but the pillars fall apart the exact same way both times, which is not the same thing.

If the whole scene was scripted, the same strider would have shot the same pillars in the same way both times, and clearly that is not what can be seen happening.

The pillars fall apart in the exact same way because you have to define what can be broken and how it will break... Compare it to how the wood in the other videos splinter in the exact same way every time when whacked at by Gordons crowbar.

*!OMG mutst been teh SKRPIT!!!!1!%!1*

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Lets explain this shall we (Sorry if someone beat me to it)



What do you think is a more likely score for a kill for the strider?

A: Shooting at the pillar

B: Shooting at the player


The answer is allmost certainly when he aims directly for the player.
But thats no fun now is it.

So what does valve do. They tell the AI that the pillar is a really attractive target so long as the player is in the same area.

The AI doesnt figure out that the pillar is a viable target. Valve tell it that it is. They do this with entities in the editor called AI hints. These "hint" at the AI what would be the most cool thing to do in a given situation.


Its not as scripted as some would like to make you think. But also its not as incredible as others would have you believe.


What I find amazing is the fact that the striders path finding AI and its ability to actually walk on those surfaces is even possible.




Basically what I am trying to say is that the AI is amazing. But its not as clever as you or I. It still needs a little help to make the really cool stuff happen.






Its early.. sorry if that didnt make sence... :rolling:

 

[MindCrafter]

Have anyone thought about vALVE making scripts for the demos? So that every action in the game are scripted to make everyhing run like they want to.

They already said that there was no man playing the game while showing it to the people.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Considering that everyone was hiding behind the pillars, I'm sharing the strider's tactical standpoint on this one.

 

[EVIL]

I understand it now, watching demostrations from unfinished games is EVIL!!!

 

[ScopeD]

Aaargh Quinny Fix That Sig Plz.

 

[Esquire]

It all makes sense to me. The pillared area has cover from the striders attacks, though obviously not the the big vaporising gun thingy. So when you see cover... what do you do? You run to it to be safer. Rather than running in the open you run behind the pillars to make you less visible. Only problem in this case was that there were quite a few people hiding around those pillars so the strider saw them and fired it's biggest weapon.

 

[Rupertvdb]

isn't gordon just sensibly taking cover in the same place twice as opposed to runing across the open area and getting beaten senseless, there are hints making it work more efficiently but its still awesome

 

[bodhi]

Just watched the e32k4 vid again...noticed something rather upsetting. The two strider scenes..when he goes by those 4 colums or pillars or whatever, in both videos when they get blasted they fall in the exact same way. EXACT same way....and it was alledgelly two different scenarios. If it was, why did the 2nd guy seem like he was rushing to get to the columns? Was it so the strider could make his scripted sequence? IE: "Strider is told to destroy columns when player is in this area" And then they exploded and broke away in the EXACT same way, in the EXACT same areas....a bit shady if you ask me...kinda turned me off when i noticed this.. :|

yeah the reason it breaks in the same spot is because the coloumn has to be deformable and althougfh you cant see it it has to be drawn that way so that it can break - its a lot easier to do it like this, i dont think they could realistically create fratures that were different everytime in the 3d models - it would just be too complex. gabe didnt say it was a different scenario, he said it was adifferent take on the same scene which is why one you actually get into the fighting area things are different but still keep to a script if you like, after all your purpose in that area in the game is going to be the same everytime you play the game as thats just the way it has to be for there to be a story. but yes you are right in saying that the strider says to itself (in effect) that there are people behind the collumns so it shoots at them with the intent to damage the collums and so create the cool effect of stuff blowing up. after all the AI only rally ahs limited functionality for doing 'what it wants to to' the artificial intelligence is just really a lot of different choices that can be made that are affected by the surroundings and the actions of others and the strider just chooses what it can do and does it - its probably even in order of priority so that the game experence will be more interesting. it would be pretty boring if you were by the pillars and the striders just ignored you and walked off because there was a larger group of people somewhere else

 

[EVIL]

whow, a blob of text, can you please make that better readable?

 

[Ollibolli]

Have anyone thought about vALVE making scripts for the demos? So that every action in the game are scripted to make everyhing run like they want to.

They already said that there was no man playing the game while showing it to the people.

That's because they showed recorded demos. It would be a bit embarrasing if the game or the player screwed up somehow during the presentation. It's an unfinished game, so instead of hoping it will work perfectly when they show it they record a demo, looks at it, says "this looks good" and then presents that.

A lot of people have thought about it all being scripted, I think those people are really confused and often don't know how basic game A.I. works or what it is capable of. It's not like the game can emulate a real life brain for all combine soldiers you see. (Maybe something for Half- Life 7? )

 

[PatPwnt]

ur probably right blah, but that doesnt change the fact that it indeed was scripted. sigh...valve over hypes their stuff a bit now that i think about it. i just hope im proven completely wrong in the final product.

Okay how about this. Say Half-Life 2 is half scripted. It's still going to be teh best gam3. Don't give yourself such great expectaions... It's not like every other game is just as good as half-life 2, so you can't really whine about it. Even though it's not out yet...

 

[RMachucaA]

I have a very interesting thery about this..:

HL2 MP Co-op.

That could be the big secret, you can play the singleplayer story in multiplayer.... the two strider parts are the same, but from a different perspective.... 2 players are going at it. Interesting theory eh? So you can go through the game with some of your friends.

 

[tokin]

Highly doubt it.

 

[[sl@yer]]

I have a very interesting thery about this..:

HL2 MP Co-op.

That could be the big secret, you can play the singleplayer story in multiplayer.... the two strider parts are the same, but from a different perspective.... 2 players are going at it. Interesting theory eh? So you can go through the game with some of your friends.

Erm....I think Valve said that there wouldn't be an official co-op....as the Sven co-op team are doing this. I might be wrong....but I'm sure this is what they said.

 

[Gir]

...this is dumb!
If I was Gabe or whoever I would run some scripted scenes at the E3 to show some cool scenes, instead of just showing some deadbeat scenes. The scripted scenes just show some really cool things, but if they weren't scripted there could have been a chance that these E3 shows would have been extreeeeemely boring...

 

[^half-life^]

Well, if you look at the strider demo from the e3 from last year(2003)
The strider also needs to destroy that part of the building.
This is also done the same way over and over...
this is probally the same situation.

 

[SLH]

...this is dumb!
If I was Gabe or whoever I would run some scripted scenes at the E3 to show some cool scenes, instead of just showing some deadbeat scenes. The scripted scenes just show some really cool things, but if they weren't scripted there could have been a chance that these E3 shows would have been extreeeeemely boring...

They were pre-made demos. In that i meen that someone played through that part of the game several times, each time recording a demo. They choose the 2 best ones to show (using in-game demo playback) at E3.

 

[ShadowBlade]

tbh I’ve just watched the 2 clips now and I can instantly tell they are not identical.. Similar yes, but id expect that considering the Strider was shooting from the same place both times around. However the large segments did not come to rest in the exact same spot and the small debris is not in the exact same place..

 

[Shuzer]

guinny, VALVe never said HL2 wouldn't have scripts, or that it'd be "95% unscripted," don't make crap up :|