Whats up with Sven-Co Op?

I think they are planning on releasing a final version for HL1 before commiting completetly to the Source version. Which sort of sucks, since I'd love to play some HL2 coop.

HL2 was released late 2004, so less than 3 years

insta said it. Back when I worked with SC, like two or three years ago, two parallell projects were developed, SC3.5 for HL1 and SC2 for HL2. Pretty much all artists focused on SC2 while the main coder wanted to finish 3.5, causing a bad situation. SC2 had another coder who solved pretty much everything and fixed every bug, and the artists where firing away at what they did best.

SC2 has been playable for the last two years or more. Several characters and vehicle models where finished but never quite implemented. The team then decided to help the 3.5 coder out with what was left and that's pretty much when things started to fail. Interest got lost, team members got into the industry, well you know how it works. So now there isn't much activity on any of the projects from the team as a whole, but the main coder for 3.5 is still working on it, implementing new functions now and then. However, since the team is so severly damaged, someone really needs to give this a good push to get it back on track. 3.5 is the bottle neck right now, if that's released well then there's really not that much left to do on SC2. It's a pretty sad story, they are both great mods.

It always sad when people can't move on. Lots of great talent wasted for a market that is destined to die before long. It's like the HL1 mappers that continue mapping for HL1 which is a hair away from being a decade old. Why not move on? Is it because they can't cope with learning new tools and development routines, or the more intensive requirement for detail, or what?

Quote from Thrik

It always sad when people can't move on. Lots of great talent wasted for a market that is destined to die before long. It's like the HL1 mappers that continue mapping for HL1 which is a hair away from being a decade old. Why not move on? Is it because they can't cope with learning new tools and development routines, or the more intensive requirement for detail, or what?

I think that's a little shortsighted, Thrik. I, for one, would love to do some LD for HL2 but since I don't have the cash for an expensive rig and I have to coop with a mid-end laptop, I stick to HL1. To still have an outlet for my creativity. I'm not doing LD only because I want to please everyone else, it's art, it's the desire to create, to build.

Can you honestly not run Half-Life 2 at all? I mean, even Source has crossed over its second birthday and if my shit computer in 2004 could run it, bearing in mind you could get hardware of that calibre for peanuts these days, I don't see how it's impossible to create for a newer game.

If it's truly the creativity that drives you, why not just produce your maps with a level of detail more akin to HL1 maps and run HL2 on lower settings? You should still end up with something meeting or outdoing HL1 standard visuals without becoming too laggy, and yet expose your work to a broader audience.

Maybe I'm just jaded after looking at HL1 maps in Mapcore and other communities for the past seven years, though. It feels like a past era to me and yet they keep popping up.

I'm looking into changing my comp in the coming months, but trust me, my PIV 2.4, 512 Mb of ram and 9500 Pro has served me well in Source. And not just HL2, but also the far more demanding DoDS.

Quote from Thrik

Can you honestly not run Half-Life 2 at all? I mean, even Source has crossed over its second birthday and if my shit computer in 2004 could run it, bearing in mind you could get hardware of that calibre for peanuts these days, I don't see how it's impossible to create for a newer game.If it's truly the creativity that drives you, why not just produce your maps with a level of detail more akin to HL1 maps and run HL2 on lower settings? You should still end up with something meeting or outdoing HL1 standard visuals without becoming too laggy, and yet expose your work to a broader audience.

Maybe I'm just jaded after looking at HL1 maps in Mapcore and other communities, though. It feels like a past era to me and yet they keep popping up.

Well yeah, I can run HL2 on low settings, and maybe you're right. Maybe I should map for HL2 again, just for the difference. I'd like to add more detail and to have more options with practically all LD elements but to fully use those options, I'd still end up having 3 - 15 frames per second on res of 800 x 1024 max in my levels..

Also, I have a laptop wich doesn't have a slot for another graphcard. I'd have to buy a whole new rig to get better performance I'm afraid..

Anyhow, you made me think about doing stuff for HL2 again. I just might try to pick it up again. Hoping this time Hammer will load fine and windows won't bug me all the time with their performance alerts..

For those of you who wish to play HL2 coop there are plenty of mods out there. There was about 5 last time I counted. Obsidian Conflict would probably be your mod of choice if you're looking for SvenCo-op on the source engine, since they pretty much copied every feature the sc team was going to add.

I definitely agree with Sniper's(the lead coder, and currently the only dedicated member of the team) decision to finish what he started on the hl1 engine. The current version is pretty much ready for release, I should know since I've played it. If he wanted he could probably release right now. It would be buggy, but not as much as the hl2 mods out there.

The reason you guys don't see much to the hl1 community is because this is mostly a game-industry related site, where people will most likely be working on the latest engines. But the fact is that the player market for hl1 games is much bigger then for source games. Just take a look at the Steam Statistics page if you think I'm bullshitting. Combine this with the fact that hl1 is far easier to work with, and the fact that SvenCo-op for HL1 is already the 4th most popular non-sold mod on steam, and you get.. yeah.

The team has been falling apart and progress has been slow lately, but rest assured, SvenCo-op will be released this year and hopefully within a few months.

Slightly off-topic, but I don't understand why some people think that the latest technology is all that matters when making a map or a mod. If that's what mattered then what the hell are people doing working on the source engine anyway? The complexities and the joy of working on an engine, how big of a fan you are of the original game, the playermarket and the chance of people enjoying you work really matter far more than working with the latest technology. Technology is really only a question if you're hoping to work in the industry.

Don't get me wrong, I was dissing you or anyone else who maps for HL1. I just think it's a waste of talent to invest hours upon hours into an outdated engine which, whether anybody likes it or not, is very old and is considered extremely ugly by the vast majority of modern gamers. To put this into context, a lot of those who play modern action games like on Xbox Live and also CS:S and whenever were roughly six years old when HL1 came out -- to them it looks absolutely ancient.

I also suspect that HL1 evidence has little industry relevance these days, and you'd be much better off with modern engine work; otherwise you're liable to end up coming across as a relic. I may be totally wrong on this, though.

I think a lot of people just need nudging to new engines, since there's so much more potential to unleash creativity. I mean, remember 3D_Mike's HL2DM map, Avalon? That looked great and was very creative, yet would have been pretty much impossible on HL1. That's the type of thing I really want to see more of on HL2, yet it doesn't seem to happen.

But as I said, I've been looking at HL1 content for over seven years now. No matter what I look at it, it looks like something I've seen before.

I'd like to remind everybody in this thread that not every Steam user can play games built on the Source engine.

Sven Co-op is the original co-op mod for HL. It's also the most famous, and the most successful, by far. 3.5 brings a lot of new features to the table. As a beta tester, I can say the 3.5 beta I have is quite rough, it needs help. It needs more talented people working on it, animators, modelers, etc. The problem lay in the fact that none of these talented individuals want to put their name to anything as old as the Half-Life engine. Why pour hours into something that will most certainly be forgotten? It's true, and mostly anybody looking to join a mod team these days is certainly going to choose Source, it's not only prettier but has a growing following each day.

Without an actual team, Sniper is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wouldn't say he was abandoned, but it seems the SC2 'team' definitely lost interest. In fact they don't even exist anymore.

There isn't much point in developing SC2, since pretty much all their ideas were 'pirated' by other ripoff mods such as Synergy Co-op (SC, durrrr, how could you get any more ripoff than that!?!!) and Obsidian Conflict. There is no argument, they are mirrored images of Sven Co-op on an updated engine. Anybody who says otherwise gets bummed in the gob, as Thrik would say.

Damn, you type fast Thrik

I don't really understand your first point. Who cares if other people think a game is ugly? To me graphics is really not important at all. Sure, it's important if you want to sell a game, but otherwise not. All I care is wether the graphics serve to build up an atmosphere than can immerse you into a game.

I definitely agree that HL2 has a lot more potential for creativity. It is much better at handling open and detailed areas, and generally offers a lot more possibilities entitywise. However, the hl1 mod scene just happens to offer more possibilites at the moment then the HL2 mod scene, and it's also far easer to create the new materials. It's probably going to stay that way for a long time, judging from what I've heard from people trying to program for the source engine.

Being honest though, I can't look at a HL1 map and take it seriously. I tried playing HL1 recently, and the graphics were so god awful I just couldn't carry on; all the atmosphere they held for me back in 1998 was just gone. Source maps on the other hand have much more available to them for creating an awesome atmosphere.

I can't be the only person like this. I know that thousands of people still play HL1 engine games, but the vast majority (to the point where we're only talking 50-150 people per other mod) only play Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat, simply because it's something they've habitually done for years. There really isn't that much of a market outside those big hit mods.

Source, on the other hand, has very few high-quality mods, and as a result there's a far bigger audience that's receptive to new mods. Again, feel free to prove me wrong, but I heavily doubt a new mod released for HL1 would make much of an impact at all. I simply don't think there's the audience there looking for new mods to play -- they just want to play CS.

I think it's just that there are no good mods around for HL2 yet. For instance: Dysatopia. Great visuals and a very impressive prestige, but I really don't like the gameplay (I've played it back in the days my desktop wasn't occaisionally smoking).

I also get the impression that, allthough the Source engine has greater potential, it isn't really getting used consistently by mods. I see lots of maps being just HL1 clones with smoother lightning and having just a little bit more detail. Nothing more. Hasty work.

The moment good mods start to come out for the source engine, my prediction is that they will dominate the HL1 mods.

To conclude my post: I can't really agree with you on this part, Thrik:

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Being honest though, I can't look at a HL1 map and take it seriously. I tried playing HL1 recently, and the graphics were so god awful I just couldn't carry on; all the atmosphere they held for me back in 1998 was just gone. Source maps on the other hand have much more available to them for creating an awesome atmosphere.

When I play They Hunger, I still get into the game without having trouble with the ancient visuals. I know a series of pretty good DoD maps wich still manage to draw me into the virtual experience. Of course, graphics can help, but as NiH said:

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All I care is wether the graphics serve to build up an atmosphere than can immerse you into a game.

And HL1 does that for me, but I guess this is different per person..

Having a mod in production for both HL1 and Source at the same time can indeed be hard. I know it, as I have tried it myself.

My bet is that the reason why they are still working on their HL1 version is because they want to polish it up. When you have been working on something for several years, then you are very reluctant to leave it without polishing it first.

Sven Coop could have released the HL1 version and then a Source version quick, but it would probably have resulted in an a lot more bugs and less features. We went this way with SoW and did not turn out too well.

@killertomato: I agree about the atmosphere part of your post. Several HL1 mods have a lot of atmosphere within them, mostly their own unique feeling as well but I feel a lot of Source stuff lacks this and feels quite dull. Sure things can look graphically pretty but I feel they would lack a personal mod/map feeling. I guess my term of atmosphere I'm talking about is different than what has been stated already though.

Quote from Thrik

Being honest though, I can't look at a HL1 map and take it seriously. I tried playing HL1 recently, and the graphics were so god awful I just couldn't carry on; all the atmosphere they held for me back in 1998 was just gone. Source maps on the other hand have much more available to them for creating an awesome atmosphere.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I enjoy playing the original Doom from time to time because the pixelated graphics makes it feel more surreal

Quote from Thrik

I can't be the only person like this. I know that thousands of people still play HL1 engine games, but the vast majority (to the point where we're only talking 50-150 people per other mod) only play Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat, simply because it's something they've habitually done for years. There really isn't that much of a market outside those big hit mods.

Source, on the other hand, has very few high-quality mods, and as a result there's a far bigger audience that's receptive to new mods. Again, feel free to prove me wrong, but I heavily doubt a new mod released for HL1 would make much of an impact at all. I simply don't think there's the audience there looking for new mods to play -- they just want to play CS.

Good point and that is probably true to a large degree. On the other hand, Afraid of Monsters was released in 2006 and still managed to win 4 Moddb awards.

You have to remember that the SvenCo-op team is not producing a new mod, though, they are adding on to a mod that is already popular

I didn't read all the posts in this topic but I think it's just dumb to focus on HL-version. People could definately be content with the current version and play it while waiting for Source-version. I just see no point at focusing on the older one, more likely they just loose players instead of getting them.