Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

It's sad but true. Those kids who used to spend their entire day mapping grew up and now either got into the gaming industry or work on major mods. There are a few quality mappers popping out here and there but they are exception imho.

Back in those days it was harder to make a cool looking map, no one knew how to make textures, models and stuff. Now you just sit on your comfortable chair, fire up hammer and bingo, you got plenty of quality resources in your fingertips. Quality textures, quality props etc... So these new mappers just make an empty and boring room and fill it up with props.

The community used 'to be run' by the community in the past but now it's run by a corporation. Maybe that's why the major mods focus on getting their mods bought. While valve's presence in the community is good it's also bad in the other hand if you get what I mean.

There are a two sites you didn't mention where you can pimp your map too btw. http://www.lanmaniax.com

The topic doesn't really seem to follow at all what you're preaching here. You're saying theres no mapping community - fair enough. When Counter-Map died off the popularity of Mapcore did rise and began to take on new members. The thing about it is, Mapcore itself isn't built on designing techniques. Sites like Snarkpit and the classic Interlopers, which was stupid to leave out, are built on that. They're also communities with members as well as HL2World. Are they as proffesional as Mapcorians? Likely not.

No mod scene? Mod Database? Http://www.moddb.com Did this site just die, or did you not know about it? I find it pretty entertaining to read for updates on mods, not all Half-life 2 mods though, but theres NUMEROUS sites giving mod updates and news posts.

Besides that, I agree. We seemed to have more upbringings and ground-breaking level design work when Half-life 1 was released. Careers formed and such, we desired and lingered for Half-life 2 so much that it seemed almost that production halted.

If I had a graph, which I am lazy to make in MS Paint - I'll say this, the number of mods roughly before Half-life 2 in production were roughly around 1250 mods (Information from estimations and moddb.com). If updated to the present I'd say only a handful of mods, roughly perhaps 200-300 are remaining. And about 10-50 seem promising for a release.

I swear to god someone just posted something about critting works.. what happeaned

I think the problem is the growing difficulty and effort needed to make a map or mod. It's not something you can learn over the weekend anymore.

Quote from curman

No mod scene? Mod Database? Http://www.moddb.com Did this site just die, or did you not know about it? I find it pretty entertaining to read for updates on mods, not all Half-life 2 mods though, but theres NUMEROUS sites giving mod updates and news posts.

He meant that there aren't many mods out atm. If you were to map for HL¹ you could choose between many mods (CS, TS, NS, DoD, TFC, etc... each one covering a different theme). It takes longer to make a (good) mod nowadays though.

I'd say that UT2k3 and 2k4 killed the HL mapping and modding community, and more specifically the "Make Something Unreal Contest."

The long run and prices made many mod teams then making their small mod on HL1 without proper tools provided by the developer as opposite to UT, they just couldn't resist, there was very minimal modding community in UT before the lauch of UT2k3, so it grew in to a huge community, but with a very small amount of new faces, that is to say that most of the modders were HL veterans.

At the first two tiers of MSUC I worked in couple of mods, modelling props and such, and both of the teams came from HL1 modding community, their mods were in the design stage and ready to start when UT2k3 came so they checked it out, loved it but when they tried to expand their teams they noticed that all their friends, team mates and the whole community had changed to UT modding community and so did they. It was easier to get memebers to your mod team, easier to get some taste on pro maps and the content was fresh.

So "HL2 came, why didn't the modders return?" Well only thing I can say to this is that when UT2k3 first came, the HL1 community had been running for a very long while, many mods didn't get up from the ground and mappers were tired of making the same thing, so it was starting to slope, so the natural decision was to go to a new hunting ground. By the time HL2 came, UT community had no slope, the community was still going on, and still is today, even if some teams went back to HL.

This is what I think.

I think Erik Johnson talked about this (kind of) in this interview:

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I think the real mistakes are happening on the individual MOD teams themselves. They are becoming far too hesitant and conservative in their approach to how they design, develop, and release their games. If you go back and look at the first versions of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, or Day of Defeat, you'll see rough games that focus around a single game play idea. The first version of Team Fortress for Quake only had 5 classes, and wasn't even a Team game. In the first version of Counter-Strike, it was virtually impossible to tell the CTs and the Ts apart. The goal of all MOD teams should be to go out and learn from the community as to whether or not your game idea is a good one or not, and plan on releasing as often as possible. Right now it appears that too many MOD teams believe they have to build the next huge hit with their first release, which is a plan that is pretty likely to fail. [...]Sometimes it feels like the MOD community is becoming more and more like the "professional" game community, where products are being approached as something that should take a long time, ship once, and then everyone moves on to the next big project. MOD teams that are approaching building games from this perspective are throwing all of the advantages they have out the window, and are just competing with every other game developer in the world.

... Which pretty just sums up my opinion. Mod teams have a certain delusion of grandeur that convinces them "Hey, let's copy Halo and release in about a year" or"I want my own version of Resident Evil." Call it lack of technical skill, lack of resources, whatever - in the end it's lack of creativity, IMO.

EDIT: Oh, and there's always a 4th, very good mod you can map for, other than CS:S, DOD:S, or HL2DM... HL2 singleplayer. It's good stuff.

Quote from Minotauro

He meant that there aren't many mods out atm. If you were to map for HL¹ you could choose between many mods (CS, TS, NS, DoD, TFC, etc... each one covering a different theme). It takes longer to make a (good) mod nowadays though.

Okay true, but think of it this way. Half-life 1 was released in November 1998. The original (Mind you crappiest that was barely changed except for a few minor guns and levels) of counter-strike was released on June 18th, 1999. There was a gap, yes. A little over 8 months. And mind you it was crap but at the time where learning this was a new experience to all. Half-life 2 released on November 2004 (I think) and now it's almost been a whole year with barely any mod releases except a few minor alphas.

The thing is, the Half-life 2 superiority compared to half-life 1 is overwhelming. To make full conversion mods takes.. time. Map props, weapons, codings, levels, all this is a longer process I say than something that can be accomplished on Half-life 1.

Quote from Fletch

If you were to go over to the CS forums, they pretty much tell you to go here. It’s kind of surreal.

heh... i try not to link to or even mention mapcore over there, you think i want to be blamed if this place is inundated with nubs?

i'll have a more erudite and topical reply when i'm less durnk

*ed: essentially I think the barrier to entry is too high, the learning curve is too steep, the documentation is basically vapor, the custom content pipeline is fucking ridiculous and all in all there are better games to mod for. The mod scene carried HL1. It can't and won't carry HL2. Valve have shot themselves in the foot by doing so little to make it easy for us--just look how many of our veteran, prolific HL1 mappers have even released custom maps. It's just too much of a pain in the ass.

Yeah, but isn't it true that all the good mods for HL came out in 2001+? I mean, I don't remember much mods that released before 2001. Also, most communities were set up around 2000 if I'm not mistaken. I think you should give everything some time.

Also, Snarkpit and Csbanana are still quite active.

Quote from Campaignjunkie

or"I want my own version of Resident Evil." Call it lack of technical skill, lack of resources, whatever - in the end it's lack of creativity, IMO.

Of course I'm going to disagree with this particular point, as I feel the creativity lies in what you do with a particular IP, rather than having to create a brand new universe, but as for everything else said in this thread, it's all sadly true.

I think the community is a bit split. For hl1 i remember we would play with 10+ mapcorians on a map i made for cstrike and on lotsa other occasions just playing dust or some other standard map, but nowadays ppl are busy playing bf2 or katamari damacy. Damn u mazy

Besides that, hl2dm isnt competitive enough, cs source is boring according to all of u, except me and mrh2o (damn u all), and even tho DOD:S is superb none of u play it. So i think ppl are just too busy playing other games instead of mapping for the game they should be playing, cs source, which is superb beyond comprehension in a good map .

In my opinion, if you want to be a good mapper, CS:S hardly cuts it these day. If I were a mapper and wanted some new challenges, I think I would go BF2.

I mean, how far do you think you can hone your skills when all you do is straight forward maze maps that all CS:S maps are?

A reason why the modding community is rather small might be that you get flamed if a mod release is not the next big thing? Because of a few top quality mods many people expect all mods to be on commercial level or above.

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*ed: essentially I think the barrier to entry is too high, the learning curve is too steep, the documentation is basically vapor, the custom content pipeline is fucking ridiculous and all in all there are better games to mod for. The mod scene carried HL1. It can't and won't carry HL2. Valve have shot themselves in the foot by doing so little to make it easy for us

I agree on this, just think about when the last version of Hammer was released(2004)...

I'd agree on the learning curve increase, its insane. When HL2 was released I was too intimidated to use the source engine.

My biggest pain when editing is the now ludicrous folder scheme that Steam adopts.

Where to place content, how to make it and even setting up the tools is extremely daunting to a newcomer. HL1 was easy, simple file structure. Map and go!

You had a wad, thats where all your textures were. Now you have materials in numourous different folders in folders. I like materials, but they scared the shiznit outta me to start with. Now you even have materials for models, where as before your skin was compiled into the model.

When I started for HL1 in the beginings of 1999, there was the HL-ERC, that was where I learn't 90% of all HL1 stuff. It was great, I had 56k then, and it cost an arm and a leg to use. So I near enough printed out the entire site. It was useful and helpful, simple and my little 14 year old brain could make sense of it.

Now we have the Valve developer Wiki, its a good idea sure, but its CRAP. There is bugger all tutorials, bugger all entity info.

HL2worlds Wiki is smaller, but I would say better, it has more information and clearer tutorials, even if some are incomplete.

Valve, you left us in the cold, and I'd be damned if at 14 I would be able to pick up editing for HL2 now....

Quote from Kosmo

In my opinion, if you want to be a good mapper, CS:S hardly cuts it these day. If I were a mapper and wanted some new challenges, I think I would go BF2.I mean, how far do you think you can hone your skills when all you do is straight forward maze maps that all CS:S maps are?

What are and what can be isnt the same. If you dont wanna build mazes, then you dont build mazes. Its not that complex. Also switching to BF2 wont make you a good mapper if mazes are all you can come up with.

Cs was without doubt the most mapped for game on the planet, with the best and most beautiful maps on that engine. Lotsa ppl here got their job from mapping for it.

And Css, well, its gobbummingly fun to play, even if its in a maze (which you cant say about HL2DM imho).

Valve should burn in hell for their model compiling system. Also creating textures without 3th-party tools is a pain in the ass.

When I create maps I want to focus on design and gameplay and not spend a shitload of my precious free time on such issues. Of course Erik Johnson has a point when he talks about, how mod teams try to act like pros, but blaming the community for the lack of mods is just wrong. And of course "next-gen" stuff like normal mapping requires more knowledge, but I still see many ways how to improve the workflow. I hope UE3 is going to be a step in the right direction.

Quote from RD

What are and what can be isnt the same. If you dont wanna build mazes, then you dont build mazes. Its not that complex. Also switching to BF2 wont make you a good mapper if mazes are all you can come up with.

Cs was without doubt the most mapped for game on the planet, with the best and most beautiful maps on that engine. Lotsa ppl here got their job from mapping for it.

And Css, well, its gobbummingly fun to play, even if its in a maze (which you cant say about HL2DM imho).

I can see your point, but I used BF2 as an example because it has totally different approac to a map than CS:S has, you have to have bigger maps, you have to think about vehicles, base defence, the flow is bit different thanks to the non-DM gameplay (tho that can be said about lots of games.)

But the overall gameplay heavly differs from the CS:S gameplay. So basically you could say that any game that has different gameplay than CS:S could improve your skills, versatility is the key to everything, many of the best heavy metal drummers play jazz because it differs so much.

This thread has made me sad