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Wow, this looks really amazing. HL1 is still one of my favorite games. They even completely remade the Xen part and according to reviews, its better than the o

Wow, this looks really amazing. HL1 is still one of my favorite games. They even completely remade the Xen part and according to reviews, its better than the original, which some players did not like that much.

thrower123 7y ago
Xen was pretty terrible in the original. I always loved the middle act of the game, basically from We've Got Hostiles onward until going through the teleporter, but that's usually where I stopped playing. The really alien, slightly demonic aesthetic didn't really appeal to me. Or the headcrabs... My real favorite was Opposing Force. It's unfortunate that games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly that that font of creativity has pretty much dried up. I'm amazed at Black Mesa, but back in the early 2000s, you didn't need a large team to make decent levels, or even total conversions.
- dorkwood 7y ago
  What's the equivalent of half-life mods these days?
  - spydum 7y ago
    Minecraft mods?
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Minecraft modding is fairly out of hand. But that's only for Java (PC) Minecraft where they basically couldn't stop it once it had started. In Minecraft you've got a situation where there is such a vibrant modding community that curation and configuration of mods to produce a complete working system with some particular flavour or theme is a whole separate skill. It's like the skill needed to make a decent container for a particular piece of server software. The right pieces but badly tuned may still be a miserable experience. It's actually very strange now for me in "vanilla" Minecraft because I'm so used to certain features "everybody" mods into the sort of packs I play. Vein mining is an example: Most packs these days recognise that individually mining several adjacent blocks (or similar with other tools e.g. chopping down a tree one block at a time) is busywork, so they eliminate it. Hold down a modifier, hit one block, all identical blocks are affected at a proportionate cost to hunger and wear on the tool used.
  - dwyerm 7y ago
    Anything and everything made with Unity.
  - throwaway8941 7y ago
    Arma 3 devs are very friendly to the modding community. There are some quite nice (and intrusive, in a good way) things built for it.
- sdenton4 7y ago
  "games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly that that font of creativity has pretty much dried up." I dunno... Seems like general purpose engines are much more readily available. The best mods were similar in scout to writing a new game in a very very hacky engine... I imagine the ones who once would have been modders are now just making games.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  > It's unfortunate that games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly... Garry’s Mod was pretty popular a few years ago (not sure about today). It’s a very mod friendly game as it itself is a mod. There’s also Minecraft. But yes, you are correct than many big (AAA) games don’t support mods anymore. I believe there three big reasons: * Server control / licensing: With games like Minecraft where you can run your own server, you get to choose what mods are on the server. The publisher running their own server with other people’s mods could get them into licensing trouble. * Complexity: Mod support takes time and effort. You need to ensure a stable API (or stable enough) do mods don’t break every time you update your game. Yes, you could just break the API, but fans of your game aren’t going to like that. And finally, the big one: * Money: Why add support for mods if you can’t make money from that feature? Yes, you could make it a DLC, but why put in the effort if there’s no guarantee of an ROI?

thrower123 7y ago

Xen was pretty terrible in the original. I always loved the middle act of the game, basically from We've Got Hostiles onward until going through the teleporter, but that's usually where I stopped playing. The really alien, slightly demonic aesthetic didn't really appeal to me. Or the headcrabs... My real favorite was Opposing Force. It's unfortunate that games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly that that font of creativity has pretty much dried up. I'm amazed at Black Mesa, but back in the early 2000s, you didn't need a large team to make decent levels, or even total conversions.

dorkwood 7y ago
What's the equivalent of half-life mods these days?
- spydum 7y ago
  Minecraft mods?
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Minecraft modding is fairly out of hand. But that's only for Java (PC) Minecraft where they basically couldn't stop it once it had started. In Minecraft you've got a situation where there is such a vibrant modding community that curation and configuration of mods to produce a complete working system with some particular flavour or theme is a whole separate skill. It's like the skill needed to make a decent container for a particular piece of server software. The right pieces but badly tuned may still be a miserable experience. It's actually very strange now for me in "vanilla" Minecraft because I'm so used to certain features "everybody" mods into the sort of packs I play. Vein mining is an example: Most packs these days recognise that individually mining several adjacent blocks (or similar with other tools e.g. chopping down a tree one block at a time) is busywork, so they eliminate it. Hold down a modifier, hit one block, all identical blocks are affected at a proportionate cost to hunger and wear on the tool used.
- dwyerm 7y ago
  Anything and everything made with Unity.
- throwaway8941 7y ago
  Arma 3 devs are very friendly to the modding community. There are some quite nice (and intrusive, in a good way) things built for it.
sdenton4 7y ago
"games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly that that font of creativity has pretty much dried up." I dunno... Seems like general purpose engines are much more readily available. The best mods were similar in scout to writing a new game in a very very hacky engine... I imagine the ones who once would have been modders are now just making games.
colejohnson66 7y ago
> It's unfortunate that games have become so complicated and mod-unfriendly... Garry’s Mod was pretty popular a few years ago (not sure about today). It’s a very mod friendly game as it itself is a mod. There’s also Minecraft. But yes, you are correct than many big (AAA) games don’t support mods anymore. I believe there three big reasons: * Server control / licensing: With games like Minecraft where you can run your own server, you get to choose what mods are on the server. The publisher running their own server with other people’s mods could get them into licensing trouble. * Complexity: Mod support takes time and effort. You need to ensure a stable API (or stable enough) do mods don’t break every time you update your game. Yes, you could just break the API, but fans of your game aren’t going to like that. And finally, the big one: * Money: Why add support for mods if you can’t make money from that feature? Yes, you could make it a DLC, but why put in the effort if there’s no guarantee of an ROI?