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Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

389 points by marconey 3y ago

epolanski 3y ago
One thing I have found extremely interesting was how Valve hit the jackpot with many early hires. It was literally people that often didn't even have a CS or let alone gaming background and yet so many of them proved to be relentlessly resourceful, creative and hard working. The guy who wrote most of the HL code wasn't even a developer and at the time was studying to become a lawyer or accountant iirc. I can't but think that timing, founders but also straight up luck played an absolutely crucial factor.
- acomjean 3y ago
  They knew Michael Abrash from working at Microsoft who went to id, told them to "you should use our engine". They went to id and walked out with the quake engine, and some advice from Romero. Sometimes it really helps who you know, and there is always some element of luck in making it. Having a great team certainly made that game what it was. It was interesting how they balance realism and fun. Its always interesting how things get made.
  - willis936 3y ago
    That coupled with the fact that the talent pool and tooling for game development were limited. Having id at your back was a superpower (which is arguably still true today when you compare their tech to other engines). DYKG recently did a video about Ken Sugimori (the Pokemon guy). He is an overly harsh critic of his own skills, but I think there is a kernel of truth in this insight: "It's kind of embarrassing to admit actually - but [video games were] a brand new industry back then, and standards were lower than in other fields..." https://youtu.be/SVFnYLTsxdc&t=18m30s https://youtu.be/SVFnYLTsxdc&t=18m30s
    - hypercube33 3y ago
      There is a video somewhere where gaben is really self destructive about how half life 2 turned out and I think it's why we don't see half life 3 or any other new games - I think he's overly critical about his work. Watching this 25th documentary really felt like the team had a nostalgia trip making it and fond memories of the game. I wonder if the spark is gone with that teams weird dynamic.
      - Hikikomori 3y ago
        He said he didn't think much about his past work and he is hardwired to keep his eyes on the future.
      - dkdbejwi383 3y ago
        That’s quite sad in a way; Half Life 2 is still an incredibly influential and beloved game 20 years later. Or is that maybe why? The weight of expectation is too great to live up to
        ErneX 3y ago
        They did release a new HL game after those: HL:Alyx (VR only though) it was critically acclaimed.
        Nekhrimah 3y ago
        The follow up Episodes One and Two are fantastic. And the leaked storyline for Episode Three looking really strong as well. I hold out hope that the Crowbar Collective (the group that remade Half-Life with the Source engine and called it Black Mesa) have been secretly working on implementing the Episode Three storyline in Source. Though, now that Source2 is out who knows? This is all my speculation anyway.
      - nickpeterson 3y ago
        I think part of it is that games (like films, novels, albums, etc) are intense, grueling creative efforts. I think many young dev teams go in pretty naive and strike gold, and assume it was hard because it was new. Then they make another and realize, nope it’s just hard every time. I think it would be very difficult to sign on to each new project after years of 70 hour weeks. What’s the point of success if you can’t enjoy your time after?
- pipes 3y ago
  Similar with goldeneye team, I think only one team member had done game Dev before (or something like that).
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - smcl 3y ago
    Goldeneye was developed by Rare, who had been in existence for 10 years by the time Goldeneye was released. I'd be really surprised if they had landed the rights to a big IP and then turned a bunch of newbies loose on it.
    - alargemoose 3y ago
      The 90s were a very different time my friend, prepare to be really surprised! https://youtu.be/3AEvEIYzMbU?si=S5NDh1874vsE72Kl?t=8m28s https://youtu.be/3AEvEIYzMbU?si=S5NDh1874vsE72Kl?t=8m28s This is video is a wider retrospective about the game that I think is worth watching, but I linked to a clip in it from a GDC talk given by the games director. Where he states himself that only he and one other goldeneye 007 team member “had ever made a game before”
      - pipes 3y ago
        Thanks for that, exactly what I was meaning!
      - smcl 3y ago
        WOW ok I stand 100% corrected
    - pipes 3y ago
      They been around a lot longer than that as "ultimate play the game" :)
    - Hikikomori 3y ago
      He's correct. Martin Hollis was game director and had worked on one game before, cant remember if he was the only one that had worked on a game before or if they had one more, the rest of the team had never worked on a game. He thought it was one of their strengths as they came up with stuff that seasoned developers would never have tried. Here's his GDC postmortem presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Fx18cppZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Fx18cppZk
- AndriyKunitsyn 3y ago
  Because technically, they didn't. As they say in the documentary, the version of the game that they made after the first year or so was bad, and they acknowledged it, and they changed their processes and introduced the "cabal" - so they basically paid that first year to gather experience. And what's important, their publisher Sierra was okay with it. I don't see that happening today, to be honest, in "AAA" titles at least. Budgets have gone through the roof, and the publisher won't give you a plan B, they will force the developer to duct-tape what they have and ship it no matter what. And the game can always be patched later, right?
  - hello281237 3y ago
    Sierra is an interesting company. In the video game industry has very few well known female game designers, and that was even more true back then. Yet the adventure game genre had several - Roberta Williams, Lori Cole, Jane Jensen, and Christy Marx (not as well known, but her games are well regarded), all of whom worked for Sierra. One has to wonder if Roberta Williams being co-owner of the company (and the designer of the first graphical adventure game) is one of the reasons for this. Another interesting story is when Ken Williams (Roberta Williams husband, the other co-owner of the company) hired middle-aged retired police officer Jim Walls to design the Police Quest adventure games (he designed the first three). Ken apparently was talking to his hairdresser about his idea for a police adventure game, when she mentioned that Walls, her husband, might be an interesting person to talk to.
    - bena 3y ago
      If you're the only one willing to tap into a talent pool, you get to pump that resource as much as you want. So if Sierra is the only company really willing to hire female game designers, they really get to take all the best.
      - bzzzt 3y ago
        I don't think others were not willing to hire female designers; some Infocom games from that time also had female authors. I think it's more to do with the time they started. Somewhere during the 80s the 'white male nerd' stereotype became a self-reinforcing thing which scared a lot of women away from everything computer-related. Also, I don't consider Sierra games 'the best designed'. Some of their games have lots of 'personality' and they were first with many innovations, but it's clear everyone was still figuring out how to design games at the time.
- nickpeterson 3y ago
  I’m sure all these people were talented, but it reinforces my own belief that the most important things are passion and focus. I feel like the tech world fixates on 10x programmers like Carmack, but motivated people can pull off amazing things.
  - z3phyr 3y ago
    Carmack the pizza guy. He did not have any computer science education at a formal institute.
    - bluedino 3y ago
      Well, he did go to University of Missouri for a year (not sure if he took compsci or?)
  - Loughla 3y ago
    I think for most hiring, regardless of industry, the secret is searching for passion, focus, (I would add) ability/willingness to learn new skills, and a positive attitude toward other humans. Specific job skills can be taught or learned. If you have the right attitude, positive outlook, and are inherently someone who learns things, you can be very successful in most jobs. Too often, hiring filters for specific job skills/credentials. Because these are supposed to be a proxy for the softer skills. It's not as effective, but much easier to deploy at scale, I think.
    - thinkingtoilet 3y ago
      I have built some truly awesome teams and besides a base level of knowledge, the only thing I care about is attitude. Another huge factor is passions, I always ask what they do outside of work. If you are passionate about something you know how to focus and care about the details. This strategy has been very successful for me.
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- underlipton 3y ago
  That struck me, too. They really took a chance on so much staff, without any real proof that they'd be able to deliver. My impression was that this was a lot more common then than now. These days, you have to be capable of work a level or two above what's needed for shipping, presumably because management and timelines are so warped that you'll be rushed and overworked and still have to deliver. People starting out or shifting careers don't have anything like this kind of backing; you go it alone and hope that you're developing the skills necessary to get hired.
- dysoco 3y ago
  They hit the jackpot or, a reasonably motivated developer, under a cool project to keep them engaged and a nurturing environment with peers in the same situation is on high chance of flourishing?
- platzhirsch 3y ago
  Diamonds in the rough with a hunger for more. Kudos to the founders recognizing this.
- nimajneb 3y ago
  Some of them had experience in map making and modding though, correct? I don't know if Dario Casali had a CS degree at the time or if he does now, but he was making Doom maps and contributed to Final Doom prior to being hired at Valve. I think he had economics degree at the time. He recently did a play through of HL with him giving commentary and realy fascinated, definitely watch that. He talks about how a bunch of them didn't really know how to make a game and somehow they did it. That doesn't take away from a bunch of inexperienced people making an awesome game though. That was hard to do I'm sure. I couldn't even dream of accomplishing that.
- deleted 3y ago
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Hikikomori 3y ago
Valve however did not acknowledge the 17th anniversary of the Half Life 2 episode 3 announcement.
- _cenw 3y ago
  They did. Check the Steam Autumn Sale header, on the far left.
  - bloqs 3y ago
    the three lamps?
    - smcl 3y ago
      Unless GP would care to point out what you're supposed to be looking for, I think you're being trolled into poring over the image looking for something that isn't there.
      - markx2 3y ago
        It is definitely there as indicated above. https://imgur.com/a/lpiPtS2 https://imgur.com/a/lpiPtS2
        smcl 3y ago
        “It” wasn’t pointed out at all in the original post. Just “look on the far left” with no indication of what. I’m not convinced this 3/E means anything. If they’re making HL3 or HL2:Ep3 then we’ll find out soon enough. Many people have tried to read the tea leaves by scouring textures and images in GTA V over the years, and every time they’ve been made to look stupid. If there’s an announcement to be made around HL, Valve won’t hide it in a Steam sale banner
        ChoGGi 3y ago
        Any vague reference to three is confirmation of an imminent HL3 announcement/release, it's a running joke.
0dayz 3y ago
It was a really cool documentary with that they actually got the other co-founder of valve on it.
evilpie 3y ago
See also Dario Casali's Half Life 25yr anniversary playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueHizonrIhAAtdj https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueH...
- splatzone 3y ago
  Dario’s descriptions of the working conditions are pretty brutal in this series. Relentless 12-16 hour days, arguments in emails, demotivating management. I grew up with a fairytale idea of what working at Valve must have been like - a brilliant environment of smart people doing their best work. Although I’m still sure that’s true, I don’t think I’d be willing to make the sacrifices these developers did for the sake of a video game. Astonishing
- ufo 3y ago
  Each video tends to start with a couple of minutes dedicated to story telling. One of the videos I found most interesting was the last one about multiplayer maps because Dario had a lot to say about designing the maps.
h1fra 3y ago
Watched it yesterday, game development is so wild. Especially this one, basically everybody were just amateur and passionate with little to no background in programming or even gaming. Also demystify how it's done, almost none of the HL goodness where there at the beginning: the intro, gman, xen, crabs, music, etc. And were just made up along the way.
sovietmudkipz 3y ago
Game Dev in the 90s into the 00s seems absolutely wild.
- brezelnbitte 3y ago
  This other recent documentary about NHL 94 is also fascinating. Explains why the game felt and played differently than any other sports game at the time. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRFT3iQx1BY&si=k4Boaw4onAWNPy1P https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRFT3iQx1BY&si=k4Boaw4onAWNPy1P This is produced by same crew as the Half-Life doc. SecretTape who produced HL doc is the for-hire arm of NoClip.
dkdbejwi383 3y ago
“Lateness is a for a little while, suck is forever” is a good quote
- andrepd 3y ago
  I believe there's a Myanmoto quote of exactly the same effect.
  - mauvia 3y ago
    Apparently there's no evidence that the quote belongs to Miyamoto. This know your meme article has some historic references for it. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-delayed-game-is-eventually-good-but-a-bad-game-is-bad-forever https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-delayed-game-is-eventually-...
- pelagicAustral 3y ago
  Reminded me of Ralph Cifaretto's exchange with Paulie at a sit-down over a some money it was owed to Paulie: - (Paulie) "You're late!" - (Ralphie) "Well, tomorrow I can be on-time, but you'll be stupid forever"
  - manthedudeguy 3y ago
    [dead]
- dom96 3y ago
  It is a good quote, but does it apply as much in this day and age? There is at least one game that sucked at launch and now seems to be generally accepted to be good after months of work post-launch (I'm thinking of No Man's Sky, but maybe Cyberpunk 2077 is another one).
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
    The quote still applies to NMS, or CP2007, because they failed to live up to the hype on release and that really left a stain on their legacy. It's fair to rejoinder that, well the games are pretty great now; but I think Gabe's meaning is really about how, from a business perspective, your product does not live up to its potential and this can have longtail business consequences. In a way, studios have hyper-focused on pre-ordering in order to get around this. Games are now investments that eventually get fixed and "live up to" their cost, instead of a polished finished product. Studios and publishers now focus on pre-ordering over finishing.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
Sad reminder of the crunch, even when the result turns out to be a success. Hours like that pushed me out of modding and into boring old business software.
- otikik 3y ago
  Yep. Web development provides a more pleasant, if perhaps less exciting, way of life than gamedev. And you can still do gamedev in your spare time (you have spare time!)
sproketboy 3y ago
[dead]
echelon_musk 3y ago
This finally resolves my unanswered question of why the music file in Blue Shift was called "prospero01.mp3" !
trash_cat 3y ago
Excellent documentary. I suggest looking into the first part of Black Mesa [1] as well after the anniversary documentary, which is the remake of the original Half Life in source engine. The modders pick talk a lot about the stuff that the original developers talked about, and what challenges they faced in re-creating it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_TcAxAKCAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_TcAxAKCAI
billfruit 3y ago
Recently tried to re-play HL2. Found it was highly motion sickness inducing, possibly due to unnaturally fast change in perspective when turning. Had to give up very soon. Newer games tend to fare better in that respect.
- capableweb 3y ago
  > possibly due to unnaturally fast change in perspective when turning Couldn't you just move the mouse slower so the turning is slower? Or lower the mouse sensitivity?
  - thrdbndndn 3y ago
    As a person who almost can't play any 3D first-perspective (shooter, action) games due to serious motion sickness, I'd say a slower cursor doesn't really make much difference. If you're not used to it (due to being different from your desktop environment), it probably would make it worse. To me, the biggest factors to (worse) sickness are 1. Narrow FOV: usually the bigger the FOV, the better. But when it starts to have too much of "fisheye" effect, it can be detrimental. 2. How "fluent" your character moves -- if you have to stop/decelerate constantly (for any reason: interact with objects, clash with walls, sharp turns), it induces sickness very quickly. Third perspective games are typically much better, but if it's in a confined space (like in a room) for extended time, it's as bad as FPS. The best FPS I've played in term of having close to no motion sickness is Overwatch. Apex Legends is pretty good in this regard too. Any Valve title is a vomit festa.
    - yedpodtrzitko 3y ago
      Interesting, I have never had any problem with Source-based games. The worst offender for me was Talos Principle and Far Cry 4 due to the headbob effect which couldnt be turned off (why?!).
    - nicolaslem 3y ago
      Portal 1 is the game that made me realize I get motion sickness from first person games. It really caught me by surprise. Amazing game though, 10/10 would do it again.
kar1181 3y ago
I was heavily involved with the australian team fortress (quake 1 version) community in the late 90s and 'bro' (Robin Walker) and John Cook were gods to us, regularly involved in the RMIT/Melbourne Lan scene and online even when back then mostly it was 28.8/33.6k modems with a few LPBS on East coast uni isdns. The struggle for them to move on from qwtf to 'tf2' was probably for the best as a lot of the lessons they learned in the wilderness there helped when they were taken on by value and worked on HL2. Also find it somewhat amusing was that TF2 was originally going to be a much more 'realistic' modern miltary shooter before the scope creep killed it.
- all2 3y ago
  > Also find it somewhat amusing was that TF2 was originally going to be a much more 'realistic' modern miltary shooter before the scope creep killed it. Instead we got Counterstrike. I'm not complaining as CS:Source is one of those games that I spent hours upon hours honing my skill.
  - pugworthy 3y ago
    To be clear, CS was developed independently of TF, and had a different genealogy as it were. Certainly some developer crossover later on, but probably more by people wanting to work on it instead of being told to.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    I don't understand this comment. The original Counter-Strike mod came out around the same time as TF got ported to HL. Unlike TF, CS had pretty much consistent releases of some kind from CS up to 1.6 to Condition Zero and then Source and Go. I don't think there was any salvaging of TF stuff into CS.
- pugworthy 3y ago
  I have seen some early draft designs for a WW2 themed shooter that might have been part of that early TF2 concept. Then Day of Defeat came along and fit the bill nicely.
- dagoodboy 3y ago
butz 3y ago
Valve has video distribution service on Steam, why put up this documentary on Youtube, of all the places?
- app13 3y ago
  Significantly higher reach. I use steam every day and didn't know its used for video distribution.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  Can you stream videos on steam? I thought you had to download the whole file?
  - butz 3y ago
    Now I'm not sure, their wording is a bit unclear: "Click Watch to add {video_title} to your account. The streaming version will be added to your Videos Library instantly. Complete the download wizard to install the downloaded version."
    - saltminer 3y ago
      Is this available on Steam? I can't seem to find it on there. Or is this just the message you get when adding videos to your account on Steam?
physicles 3y ago
Loved the documentary. I played the hell out of that game back in the day. There’s a renaissance of Half-Life Deathmatch too (short-lived, no doubt) if anyone wants a hit of nostalgia. Valve even released a couple of the concept art character models, some gameplay tweaks, and some new maps. New content for a 25 year old game. Also FYI, Half-Life and HL2 are currently both very playable in VR. Half-Life even runs natively on the Quest 2.
- incahoots 3y ago
  Oh wow really? I may need to borrow my kids' Quest 2 to give this a go.
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  Mmm love deathmatch. Thanks for the tip.
gattr 3y ago
I hope we'll get a screen adaptation of HL/HL:OpFor/HL2, at least as good as HBO's "The Last Of Us" (I loved it, and haven't even played that game).
- kingkawn 3y ago
  ill bet after the game of thrones debacle nobody wants to take on IP that doesn't have a conclusion already written.
  - incahoots 3y ago
    I swear I recall Martin stating that he had given the show-runners a conclusion to put in the show, but they bin'd it. The conclusion was a dumpster fire for so many issues, and it wasn't for lack of original content to derive from I'd argue.
    - kingkawn 3y ago
      And yet the books remain unwritten
      - incahoots 3y ago
        Given how long it took for him to write the others, are you surprised? I recalled correctly, he provided the showrunners with context, but they went largely ignored. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/11/george-rr-martin-told-game-of-thrones-showrunners-the-major-points-of-his-ending/?sh=23ed87a342a0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/11/george-rr-...
  - guyomes 3y ago
    Marc Laidlaw, who worked on the game's story of Half-life and Half-life 2, published a script online [1] that could have been the outline of the plot of Episode 3. That could be sufficient for a serie. [1]: https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Epistle_3 https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Epistle_3
austin-cheney 3y ago
So, this begs a rather obvious question. What makes that team different? Is it the talent, the leadership, the focus on product? As a long time JavaScript developer I honestly believe, and I really mean this, that maybe 4% of the people employed primarily doing JavaScript work actually know what they are doing. Just 4%. It seems at the beginning many of the early Valve team had a lot of passion but almost no real experience in that kind of code or product. They got a massive springboard with the Quake code and then figured out the rest. They didn't stagnate on the Quake code, but wildly modified it to fit their needs. Most JavaScript people are not capable of this. They just stagnate at their favorite framework and then just spin around code style and process. What differentiates that early Valve team from all these various JavaScript teams? It clearly isn't education or professional maturity.
- deleted 3y ago
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- scriptkiddy 3y ago
  To me it seems like their passion drove them to learn as much as they could. They knew enough to get the job done, but not enough to know that they "couldn't do" the things they wanted to do. More experienced devs may have thrown out a lot of the ideas the Half Life team ended up implementing as "too time consuming" or "practically impossible". Valve's devs at the time weren't experienced enough to make those assumptions, so they just worked their asses off to figure out how to do it.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
  Most developers probably don't care and just want to get paid. Beyond that, I imagine you're not usually empowered to make big changes unless you're relatively senior, and even if you decide to be the kind of developer that's always striving towards self improvement your job is unlikely to reward you for your skill development. I think there's just a lot of diminishing returns. Have you ever tried playing a competitive multiplayer game? There's people that will play games for thousands of hours without ever improving. Sometimes I think people encounter bottlenecks and they're not sure how to overcome them.
dang 3y ago
Recent and related: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38307889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38307889 - Nov 2023 (258 comments)

389 points by marconey 3y ago

One thing I have found extremely interesting was how Valve hit the jackpot with many early hires. It was literally people that often didn't even have a CS or let alone gaming background and yet so many of them proved to be relentlessly resourceful, creative and hard working. The guy who wrote most of the HL code wasn't even a developer and at the time was studying to become a lawyer or accountant iirc. I can't but think that timing, founders but also straight up luck played an absolutely crucial factor.

acomjean 3y ago
They knew Michael Abrash from working at Microsoft who went to id, told them to "you should use our engine". They went to id and walked out with the quake engine, and some advice from Romero. Sometimes it really helps who you know, and there is always some element of luck in making it. Having a great team certainly made that game what it was. It was interesting how they balance realism and fun. Its always interesting how things get made.
- willis936 3y ago
  That coupled with the fact that the talent pool and tooling for game development were limited. Having id at your back was a superpower (which is arguably still true today when you compare their tech to other engines). DYKG recently did a video about Ken Sugimori (the Pokemon guy). He is an overly harsh critic of his own skills, but I think there is a kernel of truth in this insight: "It's kind of embarrassing to admit actually - but [video games were] a brand new industry back then, and standards were lower than in other fields..." https://youtu.be/SVFnYLTsxdc&t=18m30s https://youtu.be/SVFnYLTsxdc&t=18m30s
  - hypercube33 3y ago
    There is a video somewhere where gaben is really self destructive about how half life 2 turned out and I think it's why we don't see half life 3 or any other new games - I think he's overly critical about his work. Watching this 25th documentary really felt like the team had a nostalgia trip making it and fond memories of the game. I wonder if the spark is gone with that teams weird dynamic.
    - Hikikomori 3y ago
      He said he didn't think much about his past work and he is hardwired to keep his eyes on the future.
    - dkdbejwi383 3y ago
      That’s quite sad in a way; Half Life 2 is still an incredibly influential and beloved game 20 years later. Or is that maybe why? The weight of expectation is too great to live up to
      - ErneX 3y ago
        They did release a new HL game after those: HL:Alyx (VR only though) it was critically acclaimed.
      - Nekhrimah 3y ago
        The follow up Episodes One and Two are fantastic. And the leaked storyline for Episode Three looking really strong as well. I hold out hope that the Crowbar Collective (the group that remade Half-Life with the Source engine and called it Black Mesa) have been secretly working on implementing the Episode Three storyline in Source. Though, now that Source2 is out who knows? This is all my speculation anyway.
    - nickpeterson 3y ago
      I think part of it is that games (like films, novels, albums, etc) are intense, grueling creative efforts. I think many young dev teams go in pretty naive and strike gold, and assume it was hard because it was new. Then they make another and realize, nope it’s just hard every time. I think it would be very difficult to sign on to each new project after years of 70 hour weeks. What’s the point of success if you can’t enjoy your time after?
pipes 3y ago
Similar with goldeneye team, I think only one team member had done game Dev before (or something like that).
- deleted 3y ago
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- smcl 3y ago
  Goldeneye was developed by Rare, who had been in existence for 10 years by the time Goldeneye was released. I'd be really surprised if they had landed the rights to a big IP and then turned a bunch of newbies loose on it.
  - alargemoose 3y ago
    The 90s were a very different time my friend, prepare to be really surprised! https://youtu.be/3AEvEIYzMbU?si=S5NDh1874vsE72Kl?t=8m28s https://youtu.be/3AEvEIYzMbU?si=S5NDh1874vsE72Kl?t=8m28s This is video is a wider retrospective about the game that I think is worth watching, but I linked to a clip in it from a GDC talk given by the games director. Where he states himself that only he and one other goldeneye 007 team member “had ever made a game before”
    - pipes 3y ago
      Thanks for that, exactly what I was meaning!
    - smcl 3y ago
      WOW ok I stand 100% corrected
  - pipes 3y ago
    They been around a lot longer than that as "ultimate play the game" :)
  - Hikikomori 3y ago
    He's correct. Martin Hollis was game director and had worked on one game before, cant remember if he was the only one that had worked on a game before or if they had one more, the rest of the team had never worked on a game. He thought it was one of their strengths as they came up with stuff that seasoned developers would never have tried. Here's his GDC postmortem presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Fx18cppZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Fx18cppZk
AndriyKunitsyn 3y ago
Because technically, they didn't. As they say in the documentary, the version of the game that they made after the first year or so was bad, and they acknowledged it, and they changed their processes and introduced the "cabal" - so they basically paid that first year to gather experience. And what's important, their publisher Sierra was okay with it. I don't see that happening today, to be honest, in "AAA" titles at least. Budgets have gone through the roof, and the publisher won't give you a plan B, they will force the developer to duct-tape what they have and ship it no matter what. And the game can always be patched later, right?
- hello281237 3y ago
  Sierra is an interesting company. In the video game industry has very few well known female game designers, and that was even more true back then. Yet the adventure game genre had several - Roberta Williams, Lori Cole, Jane Jensen, and Christy Marx (not as well known, but her games are well regarded), all of whom worked for Sierra. One has to wonder if Roberta Williams being co-owner of the company (and the designer of the first graphical adventure game) is one of the reasons for this. Another interesting story is when Ken Williams (Roberta Williams husband, the other co-owner of the company) hired middle-aged retired police officer Jim Walls to design the Police Quest adventure games (he designed the first three). Ken apparently was talking to his hairdresser about his idea for a police adventure game, when she mentioned that Walls, her husband, might be an interesting person to talk to.
  - bena 3y ago
    If you're the only one willing to tap into a talent pool, you get to pump that resource as much as you want. So if Sierra is the only company really willing to hire female game designers, they really get to take all the best.
    - bzzzt 3y ago
      I don't think others were not willing to hire female designers; some Infocom games from that time also had female authors. I think it's more to do with the time they started. Somewhere during the 80s the 'white male nerd' stereotype became a self-reinforcing thing which scared a lot of women away from everything computer-related. Also, I don't consider Sierra games 'the best designed'. Some of their games have lots of 'personality' and they were first with many innovations, but it's clear everyone was still figuring out how to design games at the time.
nickpeterson 3y ago
I’m sure all these people were talented, but it reinforces my own belief that the most important things are passion and focus. I feel like the tech world fixates on 10x programmers like Carmack, but motivated people can pull off amazing things.
- z3phyr 3y ago
  Carmack the pizza guy. He did not have any computer science education at a formal institute.
  - bluedino 3y ago
    Well, he did go to University of Missouri for a year (not sure if he took compsci or?)
- Loughla 3y ago
  I think for most hiring, regardless of industry, the secret is searching for passion, focus, (I would add) ability/willingness to learn new skills, and a positive attitude toward other humans. Specific job skills can be taught or learned. If you have the right attitude, positive outlook, and are inherently someone who learns things, you can be very successful in most jobs. Too often, hiring filters for specific job skills/credentials. Because these are supposed to be a proxy for the softer skills. It's not as effective, but much easier to deploy at scale, I think.
  - thinkingtoilet 3y ago
    I have built some truly awesome teams and besides a base level of knowledge, the only thing I care about is attitude. Another huge factor is passions, I always ask what they do outside of work. If you are passionate about something you know how to focus and care about the details. This strategy has been very successful for me.
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underlipton 3y ago
That struck me, too. They really took a chance on so much staff, without any real proof that they'd be able to deliver. My impression was that this was a lot more common then than now. These days, you have to be capable of work a level or two above what's needed for shipping, presumably because management and timelines are so warped that you'll be rushed and overworked and still have to deliver. People starting out or shifting careers don't have anything like this kind of backing; you go it alone and hope that you're developing the skills necessary to get hired.
dysoco 3y ago
They hit the jackpot or, a reasonably motivated developer, under a cool project to keep them engaged and a nurturing environment with peers in the same situation is on high chance of flourishing?
platzhirsch 3y ago
Diamonds in the rough with a hunger for more. Kudos to the founders recognizing this.
nimajneb 3y ago
Some of them had experience in map making and modding though, correct? I don't know if Dario Casali had a CS degree at the time or if he does now, but he was making Doom maps and contributed to Final Doom prior to being hired at Valve. I think he had economics degree at the time. He recently did a play through of HL with him giving commentary and realy fascinated, definitely watch that. He talks about how a bunch of them didn't really know how to make a game and somehow they did it. That doesn't take away from a bunch of inexperienced people making an awesome game though. That was hard to do I'm sure. I couldn't even dream of accomplishing that.
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Hikikomori 3y ago

Valve however did not acknowledge the 17th anniversary of the Half Life 2 episode 3 announcement.

_cenw 3y ago
They did. Check the Steam Autumn Sale header, on the far left.
- bloqs 3y ago
  the three lamps?
  - smcl 3y ago
    Unless GP would care to point out what you're supposed to be looking for, I think you're being trolled into poring over the image looking for something that isn't there.
    - markx2 3y ago
      It is definitely there as indicated above. https://imgur.com/a/lpiPtS2 https://imgur.com/a/lpiPtS2
      - smcl 3y ago
        “It” wasn’t pointed out at all in the original post. Just “look on the far left” with no indication of what. I’m not convinced this 3/E means anything. If they’re making HL3 or HL2:Ep3 then we’ll find out soon enough. Many people have tried to read the tea leaves by scouring textures and images in GTA V over the years, and every time they’ve been made to look stupid. If there’s an announcement to be made around HL, Valve won’t hide it in a Steam sale banner
        ChoGGi 3y ago
        Any vague reference to three is confirmation of an imminent HL3 announcement/release, it's a running joke.

0dayz 3y ago

It was a really cool documentary with that they actually got the other co-founder of valve on it.

evilpie 3y ago

See also Dario Casali's Half Life 25yr anniversary playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueHizonrIhAAtdj https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueH...

splatzone 3y ago
Dario’s descriptions of the working conditions are pretty brutal in this series. Relentless 12-16 hour days, arguments in emails, demotivating management. I grew up with a fairytale idea of what working at Valve must have been like - a brilliant environment of smart people doing their best work. Although I’m still sure that’s true, I don’t think I’d be willing to make the sacrifices these developers did for the sake of a video game. Astonishing
ufo 3y ago
Each video tends to start with a couple of minutes dedicated to story telling. One of the videos I found most interesting was the last one about multiplayer maps because Dario had a lot to say about designing the maps.

h1fra 3y ago

Watched it yesterday, game development is so wild. Especially this one, basically everybody were just amateur and passionate with little to no background in programming or even gaming. Also demystify how it's done, almost none of the HL goodness where there at the beginning: the intro, gman, xen, crabs, music, etc. And were just made up along the way.

sovietmudkipz 3y ago

Game Dev in the 90s into the 00s seems absolutely wild.

brezelnbitte 3y ago
This other recent documentary about NHL 94 is also fascinating. Explains why the game felt and played differently than any other sports game at the time. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRFT3iQx1BY&si=k4Boaw4onAWNPy1P https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRFT3iQx1BY&si=k4Boaw4onAWNPy1P This is produced by same crew as the Half-Life doc. SecretTape who produced HL doc is the for-hire arm of NoClip.

dkdbejwi383 3y ago

“Lateness is a for a little while, suck is forever” is a good quote

andrepd 3y ago
I believe there's a Myanmoto quote of exactly the same effect.
- mauvia 3y ago
  Apparently there's no evidence that the quote belongs to Miyamoto. This know your meme article has some historic references for it. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-delayed-game-is-eventually-good-but-a-bad-game-is-bad-forever https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-delayed-game-is-eventually-...
pelagicAustral 3y ago
Reminded me of Ralph Cifaretto's exchange with Paulie at a sit-down over a some money it was owed to Paulie: - (Paulie) "You're late!" - (Ralphie) "Well, tomorrow I can be on-time, but you'll be stupid forever"
- manthedudeguy 3y ago
  [dead]
dom96 3y ago
It is a good quote, but does it apply as much in this day and age? There is at least one game that sucked at launch and now seems to be generally accepted to be good after months of work post-launch (I'm thinking of No Man's Sky, but maybe Cyberpunk 2077 is another one).
- beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
  The quote still applies to NMS, or CP2007, because they failed to live up to the hype on release and that really left a stain on their legacy. It's fair to rejoinder that, well the games are pretty great now; but I think Gabe's meaning is really about how, from a business perspective, your product does not live up to its potential and this can have longtail business consequences. In a way, studios have hyper-focused on pre-ordering in order to get around this. Games are now investments that eventually get fixed and "live up to" their cost, instead of a polished finished product. Studios and publishers now focus on pre-ordering over finishing.

paulryanrogers 3y ago

Sad reminder of the crunch, even when the result turns out to be a success. Hours like that pushed me out of modding and into boring old business software.

otikik 3y ago
Yep. Web development provides a more pleasant, if perhaps less exciting, way of life than gamedev. And you can still do gamedev in your spare time (you have spare time!)

sproketboy 3y ago

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echelon_musk 3y ago

This finally resolves my unanswered question of why the music file in Blue Shift was called "prospero01.mp3" !

trash_cat 3y ago

Excellent documentary. I suggest looking into the first part of Black Mesa [1] as well after the anniversary documentary, which is the remake of the original Half Life in source engine. The modders pick talk a lot about the stuff that the original developers talked about, and what challenges they faced in re-creating it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_TcAxAKCAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_TcAxAKCAI

billfruit 3y ago

Recently tried to re-play HL2. Found it was highly motion sickness inducing, possibly due to unnaturally fast change in perspective when turning. Had to give up very soon. Newer games tend to fare better in that respect.

capableweb 3y ago
> possibly due to unnaturally fast change in perspective when turning Couldn't you just move the mouse slower so the turning is slower? Or lower the mouse sensitivity?
- thrdbndndn 3y ago
  As a person who almost can't play any 3D first-perspective (shooter, action) games due to serious motion sickness, I'd say a slower cursor doesn't really make much difference. If you're not used to it (due to being different from your desktop environment), it probably would make it worse. To me, the biggest factors to (worse) sickness are 1. Narrow FOV: usually the bigger the FOV, the better. But when it starts to have too much of "fisheye" effect, it can be detrimental. 2. How "fluent" your character moves -- if you have to stop/decelerate constantly (for any reason: interact with objects, clash with walls, sharp turns), it induces sickness very quickly. Third perspective games are typically much better, but if it's in a confined space (like in a room) for extended time, it's as bad as FPS. The best FPS I've played in term of having close to no motion sickness is Overwatch. Apex Legends is pretty good in this regard too. Any Valve title is a vomit festa.
  - yedpodtrzitko 3y ago
    Interesting, I have never had any problem with Source-based games. The worst offender for me was Talos Principle and Far Cry 4 due to the headbob effect which couldnt be turned off (why?!).
  - nicolaslem 3y ago
    Portal 1 is the game that made me realize I get motion sickness from first person games. It really caught me by surprise. Amazing game though, 10/10 would do it again.

kar1181 3y ago

I was heavily involved with the australian team fortress (quake 1 version) community in the late 90s and 'bro' (Robin Walker) and John Cook were gods to us, regularly involved in the RMIT/Melbourne Lan scene and online even when back then mostly it was 28.8/33.6k modems with a few LPBS on East coast uni isdns. The struggle for them to move on from qwtf to 'tf2' was probably for the best as a lot of the lessons they learned in the wilderness there helped when they were taken on by value and worked on HL2. Also find it somewhat amusing was that TF2 was originally going to be a much more 'realistic' modern miltary shooter before the scope creep killed it.

all2 3y ago
> Also find it somewhat amusing was that TF2 was originally going to be a much more 'realistic' modern miltary shooter before the scope creep killed it. Instead we got Counterstrike. I'm not complaining as CS:Source is one of those games that I spent hours upon hours honing my skill.
- pugworthy 3y ago
  To be clear, CS was developed independently of TF, and had a different genealogy as it were. Certainly some developer crossover later on, but probably more by people wanting to work on it instead of being told to.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  I don't understand this comment. The original Counter-Strike mod came out around the same time as TF got ported to HL. Unlike TF, CS had pretty much consistent releases of some kind from CS up to 1.6 to Condition Zero and then Source and Go. I don't think there was any salvaging of TF stuff into CS.
pugworthy 3y ago
I have seen some early draft designs for a WW2 themed shooter that might have been part of that early TF2 concept. Then Day of Defeat came along and fit the bill nicely.
dagoodboy 3y ago

butz 3y ago

Valve has video distribution service on Steam, why put up this documentary on Youtube, of all the places?

app13 3y ago
Significantly higher reach. I use steam every day and didn't know its used for video distribution.
squeaky-clean 3y ago
Can you stream videos on steam? I thought you had to download the whole file?
- butz 3y ago
  Now I'm not sure, their wording is a bit unclear: "Click Watch to add {video_title} to your account. The streaming version will be added to your Videos Library instantly. Complete the download wizard to install the downloaded version."
  - saltminer 3y ago
    Is this available on Steam? I can't seem to find it on there. Or is this just the message you get when adding videos to your account on Steam?

physicles 3y ago

Loved the documentary. I played the hell out of that game back in the day. There’s a renaissance of Half-Life Deathmatch too (short-lived, no doubt) if anyone wants a hit of nostalgia. Valve even released a couple of the concept art character models, some gameplay tweaks, and some new maps. New content for a 25 year old game. Also FYI, Half-Life and HL2 are currently both very playable in VR. Half-Life even runs natively on the Quest 2.

incahoots 3y ago
Oh wow really? I may need to borrow my kids' Quest 2 to give this a go.
therealdrag0 3y ago
Mmm love deathmatch. Thanks for the tip.

gattr 3y ago

I hope we'll get a screen adaptation of HL/HL:OpFor/HL2, at least as good as HBO's "The Last Of Us" (I loved it, and haven't even played that game).

kingkawn 3y ago
ill bet after the game of thrones debacle nobody wants to take on IP that doesn't have a conclusion already written.
- incahoots 3y ago
  I swear I recall Martin stating that he had given the show-runners a conclusion to put in the show, but they bin'd it. The conclusion was a dumpster fire for so many issues, and it wasn't for lack of original content to derive from I'd argue.
  - kingkawn 3y ago
    And yet the books remain unwritten
    - incahoots 3y ago
      Given how long it took for him to write the others, are you surprised? I recalled correctly, he provided the showrunners with context, but they went largely ignored. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/11/george-rr-martin-told-game-of-thrones-showrunners-the-major-points-of-his-ending/?sh=23ed87a342a0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/11/george-rr-...
- guyomes 3y ago
  Marc Laidlaw, who worked on the game's story of Half-life and Half-life 2, published a script online [1] that could have been the outline of the plot of Episode 3. That could be sufficient for a serie. [1]: https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Epistle_3 https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Epistle_3

austin-cheney 3y ago

So, this begs a rather obvious question. What makes that team different? Is it the talent, the leadership, the focus on product? As a long time JavaScript developer I honestly believe, and I really mean this, that maybe 4% of the people employed primarily doing JavaScript work actually know what they are doing. Just 4%. It seems at the beginning many of the early Valve team had a lot of passion but almost no real experience in that kind of code or product. They got a massive springboard with the Quake code and then figured out the rest. They didn't stagnate on the Quake code, but wildly modified it to fit their needs. Most JavaScript people are not capable of this. They just stagnate at their favorite framework and then just spin around code style and process. What differentiates that early Valve team from all these various JavaScript teams? It clearly isn't education or professional maturity.

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scriptkiddy 3y ago
To me it seems like their passion drove them to learn as much as they could. They knew enough to get the job done, but not enough to know that they "couldn't do" the things they wanted to do. More experienced devs may have thrown out a lot of the ideas the Half Life team ended up implementing as "too time consuming" or "practically impossible". Valve's devs at the time weren't experienced enough to make those assumptions, so they just worked their asses off to figure out how to do it.
TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
Most developers probably don't care and just want to get paid. Beyond that, I imagine you're not usually empowered to make big changes unless you're relatively senior, and even if you decide to be the kind of developer that's always striving towards self improvement your job is unlikely to reward you for your skill development. I think there's just a lot of diminishing returns. Have you ever tried playing a competitive multiplayer game? There's people that will play games for thousands of hours without ever improving. Sometimes I think people encounter bottlenecks and they're not sure how to overcome them.

dang 3y ago

Recent and related: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38307889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38307889 - Nov 2023 (258 comments)