Talk:Half-Life: Source

Magnum
The note I added regarding the changes in power of the magnum was removed from the "Differences" section.

Differences
I see no justification for this; this is a proper, noticable change between HL and HL:S.

Accordingly, I have reinserted this material.

If you wish to remove it, I aver you must justify doing so, since it plainly is a difference between the games.

Toby Douglass 13:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The paragraph about the Magnum needs to be verified and rewritten. Right now it uses slang words such as "nerfed", poor sentence structure and it isn't even confirmed if this is true or not. So don't just add it back in. -TonicBH 04:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Verification okay, but note that I wrote a HL:S mod and I played HL from day one (indeed, completed it on day one). As such, the comments about magnum power are not hearsay; I experienced the changes and looked at the code.  Note though that the same could be said of *all* the other claims made for differences but they have not been removed.  Accordingly, I've tried to improve the sentance structure and I've reinserted the information.  Toby Douglass 21:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It is hearsay, it's also not true. I've just tried it on HL and HL:S, medium difficulty.  Notarget on, map c2a3 (apprehension).  Marines take 2 shots from the magnum in both games, 1 shot if in the head, also both games.  I only decided to try this out when I read in the paragraph that the original magnum was a one hit kill weapon, which I remember it distinctly not being and thus the bullshit detector was flagged.  Have you really looked at the code?  They did nerf the magnum in HL2: DM because it was unbalanced, that is something which has not carried other onto HL:S, unless it also nerf-magicked the original HL magnum too, which it didn't.  Go take your HL2:DM qualms elsewhere. - Hahnch  e  n 04:22, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You played on medium difficulty. Weapon power varies across difficulty level.  My comments are for hard difficulty level.  On medium, I suspect the weakening of the magnum is not noticeable because of the damage multiplier.  I specifically disagree with you that the weakening of the magnum does not affect ALL HL2 variants; I assert that it does - I guess that you are playing on medium difficulty? (and so the effect would not be noticed in single player).  It's impossible to check now that the magnum was ever a one shot kill weapon in HL2 single player, because Steam only provides the latest version of the game.  When you played HL2 single player, did you play before the magnum nerf for DM?  if not, you will only have ever known the weakened magnum and will think that it was only ever that strong.  Finally, please be a bit more civil.  I don't go around making unfounded claims for the hell of it.  Toby Douglass 08:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Your point claimed that in the original HL, the magnum was a one shot kill. This is not true, unless you say the also nerfed the original HL magnum, which I entirely doubt.  I also checked the thing on hard difficulty, with the marines, it's still a 2 hit kill and 1 to the head.  That was just wrong.  The return to the monorail platform after the resonance cascade which apparently locked you there, was false.  Maybe in an early version, it was a bug, but it's obviously been fixed.  Headcrabs have always jumped at you even when things get in the way, it was like that in the original and it's like that in HL:S.  I've not played enough HL:S to verify whether the AI is messed up or not, but from the tiny bit I did play when testing out these "claims" suggested otherwise.  In the original Half-Life, houndeyes definitely DID run away after being shot, and the few zombies I met whilst playing HL:S definitely didn't run away to seek cover.  I have however, not tried out the magnum on easy difficulty in either game.  And yes, I know the magnum was nerfed, but I really don't think it's been carried over to the other iterations of the magnum.  I probably was a bit uncivil, but after seeing 3 false statements in 1 section, and possibly more, it really did read like rubbish. - Hahnch  e  n 11:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll find my HL disk and verify the magnum. The comment about the monorail wasn't mine (although I recall running into that problem recently - I tried it to see).  I assert headcrab jumping is subtly wrong - they jump when they wouldn't have in normal HL.  I can understand other people feeling differently on this matter; it's not a glaring difference.  The AI behaviour is UTTERLY different - it's HL2 AI, not HL1 AI.  That change is NOT small.  The scripting quality in HL:S is noticeably weakened; monsters simply don't respond as promptly or accurately, during the scripted sequences; their timing and positioning is out.  The HL2:DM magnum nerf was absolutely carried over into the original game; it made the magnum far less useful, particularly so because the ammo supply for it, built into the maps, was designed on the basis of a one-shot kill weapon.  As for civility, I too am seeing numerous false statements in *your* comments, no? :-) Toby Douglass 12:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe the AI is different, I've not said it isn't. But Zombies do not seek cover, just as they wouldn't in HL2 and houndeyes have always run away.  I really don't think the headcrab jumping thing is different, I've been playing HL1 since it was out, and have played pretty much every custom single player map out there.  Headcrabs have always leapt at you even when they couldn't reach you, hitting the sides of things etc etc.  I do not know if they nerfed the magnum in normal HL2, I can say however, that in HL1 it was never a single hit kill weapon for marines which is what flagged the entire section as false.  Maybe some of my statements here are incorrect, but I don't put them unsourced into the article.  On another note, I have just removed another of your statements from the Source engine page regarding the jumping criticism.  I had actually read that a few days back, and thought it to be wrong.  But in light of the statements made in this article, I removed it.  What you seem to have described there is pressing jump and forward at the same time, and it not performing a running jump.  This pretty much happens in every 3d engine there is, that's because you pressed jump before forward by a split second. - Hahnch  e  n 12:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You don't often see Zombies going for cover because they move so slowly. They've either been killed before they can hide or they're far away enough from cover they don't bother.  However, they can often be found hiding when they back off to luck around a corner (where before they would simply have come forward) which makes them an easy kill.  In particular, their new behaviour can be seen where Gordon is activating the fuel and oxygen supplies to the rocket.  There is one room where a ladder goes down and two Zombies are lurking at the base of the ladder.  They cannot climb the ladder, so they're stuck at ground level.  There, they move into cover to avoid Gordon - they specifically move in response to Gordon's movements, to keep themselves hidden.  Regarding the removal of material, I would appreciate the curtsey of you *discussing* things you disagree with PRIOR to removal.  You disagree with me, I disagree with you.  Removing material and THEN talking about it is impolite.  With regard to forward jumping, my experience with HL/HL2, compared to other FPSs, is that the HL/HL2 engine is deliberately designed to prevent running jumps from a standing start.  The player accelerates upon hitting forward but doesn't reach full speed for a moment or two.  If the jump occurs in this time, it is a short-jump; e.g. essentially a standing jump with forward held down in the air, which gives a very short jump.  This short but non-negliable necessary delay makes careful jumping in HL/HL2 problematic, to the extent it simply isn't worth doing.  This can also be caused by hitting jump prior to forward, but it is not difficult to hit jump AFTER hitting forward and I do not make that mistake on a consistent basis such that I imagine the game engine is causing problems when in fact it is me; and it is a problem I do not find in other games I've played over the years (the various Quakes, Tribes 2, etc).  I aver where you assert this behaviour happens in pretty much every game engine, you actually mean you expect that if jump was hit before forward that this behaviour would happen.  I imagine you are correct, but this is not the issue. Toby Douglass 17:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think one thing that must be addressed is WP:NOR. Your edits to here and Source engine, Toby, fall into those qualifications. You have to verify sources and have like a reference link. Just so you know next time. -TonicBH 23:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * If I think sections aren't very good, false or totally misleading then I'm going to remove them. I have also played various games over various years, and I say that the jumping is no different.  Maybe you'd be right if other people chimed in about this, but given some of your earlier comments made, I really can't take anything you say to have any truth value to it.  I still strongly believe that the HL2 magnum wasn't nerfed in SP, the more I think about this, the more I'm sure it wasn't.  The HL1 magnum was never meant to be single hit kill, which I'm guessing you've now verified, why would they alter such a core weapon for HL2?  I didn't remember the magnum being different.  Things like the nuanced differences in headcrab jumping and obstacle clipping issues, something that's always happened, how can you notice these minute differences yet forget how the magnum works?  I mean, things about the ladder in the source engine article are absolutely fine, ladder control could be counter-intuitive.  If the zombie does act like that in HL:S, how is that AI behaviour worst than the original, which your edit seems to suggest?  The houndeye running away "criticism" is still in the article, yet the houndeye has always run away.  It really reads like someone has played HL:S after having played the orginal HL once or twice on a friend's machine. - Hahnch  e  n 02:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * FYI, I wrote the CS Report. I've played HL (and CS) a *lot*.  I noticed and diagnosed the hit box issues in CS - for example, where a crouched player with a wall closely behind him had no head box.  No one else - of the hundreds of thousands of CS players - noticed this (and many other problems), or, if they did, they didn't publicise the information.  Valve used the information in the CS Report to fix a range of bugs in the HL engine for the CS 1.4 release - I was in contact with Eric and Adrian in particular.  Accordingly, I assert that much as I certainly make mistakes, I have an excellent feel for the behaviour of the game.  On a separate matter, I feel it improper to attempt to undermine someone's arguments by suggesting they lack experience in the game.  It's an avoidance of the arguments themselves.  I specifically refrained from doing this with regard to yourself and the fact you have not noticed the difference in AI behaviour between the two games, which struct me as being indicative of a lack of experience in both games; for example, with regard to Houndeyes, as you say, in HL they ran away - but in HL2, which is the point I'm making, they actually run to hide behind cover *and then stay there*, despite in fact often being partially exposed and so in fact being stationary targets with a non-ranged attack.  This behaviour was completely absent from HL, the difference in behaviour is blatant, and derives purely and only from the HL2 AI.  Toby Douglass 23:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Your newer edit concerning the AI is totally different in its approach in comparison to your previous one. This one states it's different, your previous edits claimed that the AI is worse.  Which incidentally was what my problem with the section was.  The original comments about the AI were totally misleading.  I've barely touched HL:Source, it's not a case about experience, it's a case of what's right and what's wrong.  And there was a lot of wrong in your sections, which I guessed, wrongly or so it seems was due to your lack of playtime in the original. - Hahnch  e  n 18:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

ZS
I've moved your edits here, because the ::EDIT:: tag wasn't working (it was visible) and I'm not sure what the correct tag is.


 * EDIT:: the above bit regarding the Security guards is not entirely true. You can stop a security guard and make him wait in a position if you talk to him.  He'll give you the signal that he intends to stay right where he is.


 * EDIT:: again, same as with security guards, if you talk to a scientist, he will let you know that he will wait right where you want him to.

Regarding your comments, you are right, you can tell guards and scientists if they should or should not follow you; but this misses the point - for you cannot know in advance when you'll suddenly need to dodge backwards, so how can you use this to solve the problem? you'd have to know you were about to be attacked (!) and tell the guard to stop following you - which would also mean you didn't get to use him in combat at all, which defeats one of the main purposes of the guards.

Also it doesn't address the other problem, which is that the guards stop firing when they move to keep up with you, which renders them much less useful in comabt. Toby Douglass 21:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Once again, I have to tell you, Toby, that original research without resources or pages is frowned upon here. And unfortunately, this entry reeks of it. -TonicBH 04:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

about old hl1 mods
Anyone can write about old half life 1 mod under HL:S ? Is a mod such as natural selection getting any advantage from HL:S over HL ? :)

thanks!

Mods for the original Half-Life will not work with Half-Life: Source, as the two use different engines. Sorry. Sk4yt (talk) 20:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
This entire articles pretty much criticises HL: S. Even though HL: S is really just the original HL with better physics, water effects, AI, and the like, it should at least include as much good things to say about it as it does bad things. --Dark Jirachi 04:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: I thought of a word for what I was talking about. The article is too biased. --Dark Jirachi 17:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

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