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Half-Life: Alyx

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Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#261

Post by the_af »

outworlder wrote: post #208
the_af wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea, but my guess would be the previous games are a requirement, or at least HL2. The Half-Life series is "story heavy" single player. These are characters we know.

As was, for example, Baldur's Gate II. And yet you could enjoy it without playing the first. You'd miss all the references though. They could just as easily take a similar route. And they should, because it's on a different medium.

I suppose, and you may be right. But I meant that the Half-Life series is a very cinematic (among the first games to embrace this, if I recall correctly), right from the intro. Playing just HL: Alyx would be like watching Return of the Jedi while skipping A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back -- I mean, you definitely can and still enjoy the movie, but you're missing something important.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#262

Post by swalsh »

fhood wrote: post #149
thatguyagain wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. It is not a gimmick and will definitely be a "thing" in the foreseeable future. So we have different ideas of the foreseeable future, interesting.

Nobody is going to play games that make them sick. Ever. It will not happen. This is not a solved problem, and VR will never be anything but a niche technology until you can walk in a video game without needing to throw up.

Motion sickness is an exaggerated problem in my own experience. Your body adapts, and it kind of just goes away. I never had it with Onward, but the first few times I played Pavlov, and did some quick turns there were times I felt weird. That went away very shortly.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#263

Post by reificator »

drivers99 wrote: post #234
the_af wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting! Impressive. By the way, back then I really liked the first stages of HL2 -- the dystopian intro absolutely rocks -- but eventually had to stop playing, partly because it was getting too long, and partly because of motion sickness. This really took me by suprise because I was a gamer, had enjoyed the original HL without problems... and suddenly there was a new breed of 3D games where I got motion s…

I remember specifically where I was in the game when I got motion sick. I guess the brain is good at remembering things like that for survival reasons. What I've learned as a strategy: Stop playing as soon as you start feeling ill. Just save and come back to it tomorrow. Do not try to get back into it (or anything similar, like watching videos of FPS games) after a short break. Wait until the next day or later. You s…

> As for FOV, which seems to be the cause, I found a reference that says the fov is 75 until you meet Alyx. (Wait, what?)

Agreed: What?

Can someone please shed some light on whether this is true and why that would be?

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#264

Post by olyjohn »

whiskyant wrote: post #238
ben7799 wrote: post #38

This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever. I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2. I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games b…

You think a new Half-Life game, something which has been demanding for years by hoards of people on the internet, is narrowly targeted?

I agree with the parent. The VR aspect really narrows the market to someone who has a powerful PC and wants to spend at least another $400 for a VR headset. As far as I can tell, all the VR headsets are proprietary, and games must be written to support them... for some reason. Which is a huge turn off. I don't want to buy a VR headset, then find out the next badass VR game only works with some other headset...

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#266

Post by outworlder »

skizm wrote: post #230
jonas21 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all engineering and logistical challenges, and there's no reason to believe that they won't be overcome eventually. A gimmick is something that, even in its best form, is not compelling in the long run. VR sounds like the opposite - it's not compelling to that many people yet because it has known issues, but fix those issues, and it would be.

The real challenge is no haptic feedback, which I don't think there is any real way to overcome. The better the visuals get the more your brain rebels at not being able to touch anything or feel motion when moving.

> your brain rebels at not being able to touch anything

As long as the game has you using 'tools', then it's fine. The moment it wants you to use actual hands, then it becomes a problem. Haptic feedback would help immensely, but there's no real way to overcome not feeling resistance if you are, for instance, pushing an object.

> or feel motion when moving.

True. This is why people get motion sickness.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#267

Post by Impossible »

etrautmann wrote: post #130
mmanfrin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate how popular Half-Life was. The #1 game played on steam right now is a former HL mod, Counter Strike. I don't think the market for HL is small at all. VR, though, is a different story. That absolutely limits the market. That being said, I'd wager that a majority of people who play VR games on PC will likely buy this game, as it's probably the first true AAA title developed specifically for VR…

I'm sure Valve is thinking of this as a killer app to drive VR adoption. All it takes is one amazing game, but it's been a chicken and egg problem for buying VR hardware before sufficiently compelling games are available.

Yes this game is literally a system seller, it comes free with Index. Even if it doesn't make VR mainstream by tech benchmarks it will significantly grow the PC VR market and might make it a more attractive development target.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#268

Post by the_af »

wlesieutre wrote: post #244
the_af wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides sharing an engine, Counter Strike and Half-Life have little to do with each other. One is a ruthless and plotless multiplayer game with a military theme, the other is a scifi plot-heavy single player experience (yes, HL also has multiplayer, but that's not the point of the game).

In the same way that Half-Life gave us Counter Strike and Team Fortress , imagine what the editing tools for Half-Life: Alyx could do for VR content development. And let's not forget Garry's Mod either. VR physics sandbox in the HL:Alyx engine? That's going places.

Yes, I agree about the engine and mod tools being a huge thing. I'm just saying Counter Strike's popularity was not directly tied to Half-Life's, only indirectly through its engine :)

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#270

Post by arrrg »

the_af wrote: post #165
outworlder wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original + still have time to play long form games + still have gaming equipment + have VR/are willing to buy VR. Are they making playing the previous games a requirement? Games can stand on their own, even if they are best enjoyed when you already have some emotional investment.

No idea, but my guess would be the previous games are a requirement, or at least HL2. The Half-Life series is "story heavy" single player. These are characters we know.

Story heavy?

You need about one sentence to set up the world. Here, the website even does it for us: „Set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Alyx Vance and her father Eli mount an early resistance to the Combine’s brutal occupation of Earth.“

I would tack on “aliens” to describe the Combine and then I’m done. Half Life is not exactly complex or subtle in its storytelling. Heck, the main character in the other games never says a word …

Sure, people won’t get all references, but since this is a HL2 prequel (so between 1 and 2) and happens in a completely different part of the world HL1 happens in there isn’t much you have to know.

If this were HL3 proper then you would have more of an argument, but this seems to just play in that alien-oppressed world and that’s just very simple.

I don’t think you have to know anything at all about the Half Life story to understand this game and I think that’s on purpose.

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