Source: Beyond Anyones Expectations?

[WhiteZero]

"The combination of Half-Life 2 the game, the Steam delivery system, and the Source SDK will define a new generation of PC gaming, usher in a golden age of man, and focus the mod community into a coherent beam which punches a hole straight through our notions of professional and amateur development.

In that order."
-Penny Arcade - 12/11/04

Indeed...

I look over on ModDB more than a few times per day. And guess what I mostly see there? 70% HL2 (Source) mods being posted. Many of them with original and imaginative content. Many of them with better teams and better content than any games community before it.

Source seems to have atleased 5x the community development as it's predecessor, Half-Life Engine. Why is this? Is it because of Half-Life's run-away success. Is it because of DoD, TFC, and/or Counter-Strike?

Look how many teams have also switched over to Source from other engines.

I pop a visit over to Doom 3 FileFront maybe once a day to see whats going on in the D3 community... nothing. The place is practically dead (not completly, since I do sometimes see some decent content being made). Battlefield 2 and UT2k3 seem to have a pretty good community backing it, but still pailing in comparison to Source.

What do you guys think has made Source the "place to be" in the ameture development community?

 

[Pesmerga]

No suprise, Valve shoots big.

 

[WhiteZero]

Quick Factoid for you guys:
On ModDB, HL2 is now upto 946 registered MODs...
I'll make sure to make a thread when it hits 1000, an all time record.

 

[63]

No suprise, Valve shoots big.

Holla back gurl.

 

[BrimStone04]

1000 mods is freaking awesome, hope not all of em use the hl2 guns and all look like nova prospekt

 

[aeroripper]

Because half-life spawned such a huge mod community it was natural for half-life2's mod community to be a success as well. Also keeping the #1 most played online game helps as well.

The source engine really isn't even THAT impressive. It's mostly stuff that's been done before. Doom3 doesn't get lots of mods because its shadows suck (if it had soft shadow, it would be better). Also a lot of times these new mods starting out think to themselves... "do i want to release a good mod for a semi-popular engine and a small community?" or "do i want to release it for a popular engine with a huge modding community that will be played for years".

 

[dream431ca]

Source is the most impressive engine I've seen so far. Especially the physics part of the source engine is really revolutionary. The graphics are also the best I've seen (battlefield 2 is ok, but it's still not as good...almost as good.)

 

[aeroripper]

The crytek guys have a pretty good engine as well. I like their projected lights and dynamic lighting is FAR better than source. But source seems to be able to do prettier static and radiosity lighting. Also source can't do cloth physics and projections on gas effects.

The FEAR demo has some COOL lightning (like when you walk down that hallway and those utility light things flip on and they move a little). Overall though the lighting is still a tad dark even in the lighter areas... i think its per-pixel dynamically lit though...

The physics really isn't that revolutionary either... try the gravity fun is a novel idea but there are lots of glitches with this version of havok physics they got. There were quite a few games with havoc physics in them before half-life2.

I think megon has more impressive physics anyways.

As a whole though source is a good package for modders, especially if they keep upgrading the engine with features like HDR and improving the toolset.

 

[Cole]

The physics really isn't that revolutionary either... try the gravity fun is a novel idea but there are lots of glitches with this version of havok physics they got. There were quite a few games with havoc physics in them before half-life2.

Yes but what game used them to HL2's extent? Iven when playing BF2 or Fear I just wanna shoot something and watchit move like it does in HL2.....and I can't....

try the gravity fun is a novel idea but there are lots of glitches with this version of havok physics they got.

They worked with Havok on the oringal Havok and revamped tons of it's code, and well Havok 2 uses quite a bit of code from that.
Anyway, Cloth Physics....umm yeah..what would have been the point besides waste CPU power? So no duh it isn't doing cloth physics..what game can(I mean an actual recent 3D shooter). When Physic Cards come along..why the hell not?

Source isn't the best engine, but in terms of modability it steals the show and bitch slaps the other engines and then beats them with it's golden crowbar.

 

[hi_ted]

One of the things that I really like about Valve is how they are continually updating things one piece at a time.
Now that HDR is about to be fully supported, we can look forward to other upgrades to Source. Havok 3? Real-time shadows? Fluid dynamics? Increased AI? ...

 

[Solver]

Just to add some pessimism (no, I'm not actually pessimistic):

The HL2 modding scene can, thus far, be viewed as disappointing. For example, there are very, very few full single player mods, like HL2: Substance. An alarming tendency is that, while a lot of mods are being started, most never get beyond the point of a media release or two. In Doom3, by the way, all is not so dead - there's a fair amount of decent SP maps/map packs, although the online playing community isn't active. Then again, MP was never intended for Doom3.

What I really think is that Source is one awesome engine. It has support for things more advanced than found in HL2 itself (as evidenced by, say, Lost Coast), and the engine is capable of performing very well, in my experience. The only thing Source games don't have is full dynamic lighting and shadowing as in Doom3, but there is a very good reason - it takes a huge amount of computing power, which is why Doom3 is the biggest resource hog out there despite the small environments.

 

[Beerdude26]

Just to add some pessimism (no, I'm not actually pessimistic):

The HL2 modding scene can, thus far, be viewed as disappointing. For example, there are very, very few full single player mods, like HL2: Substance. An alarming tendency is that, while a lot of mods are being started, most never get beyond the point of a media release or two. In Doom3, by the way, all is not so dead - there's a fair amount of decent SP maps/map packs, although the online playing community isn't active. Then again, MP was never intended for Doom3.

They will learn from those experiences, and the next time they do a mod, they'll probably be much more determined than last time.

 

[hi_ted]

For example, there are very, very few full single player mods, like HL2: Substance.

Can you even call Substance a full single player mod? It's only HL2 on a harder difficulty level. The reason we haven't seen full single player releases yet is because it takes a long time to make a good quality release.
Half Life 2 modifications
HL2 Mods
www.blackmesasource.com
http://www.hidden-source.com/
Notice how most of them are either TBA or a few months off, that's because the teams are dedicated to deliver all new environments and challenges.

With the flexibility of Source and Steam, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve eventually implements soft-shadowing and dynamic lighting effects.

 

[Solver]

They will learn from those experiences, and the next time they do a mod, they'll probably be much more determined than last time.

No doubt about that, although it certainly does slow the whole process down. Instead of having big teams working on a few mods, many teams lack people, and there are tons of mods with 2-people teams...

Can you even call Substance a full single player mod? It's only HL2 on a harder difficulty level. The reason we haven't seen full single player releases yet is because it takes a long time to make a good quality release.

It is a full SP mod, although not a map pack or anything. It's HL2, but with new weapons and significant changes to most maps. Most important of all, the game feels very different.

Black Mesa Source is one mod I have faith in, for some reason. I just have a gut feeling that it's not going to die and will be completed, although it will surely take a significant amount of time still. And yes, I am myself eager to replay HL1 with HL2 graphics and engine.