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Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

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Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#151

Post by philistine »

panopticon wrote: post #133
masklinn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, 80 people is pretty substantial even at the time; for comparison, indie hits like Hades had ~20 people working on it I wouldn’t call Hades an indie hit in the classic sense. Bastion was an indie hit, but by Hades supergiant had releases 3 acclaimed games. That’s not to detract from the well deserved success of Hades, but SG was damn well established by then.

Past success is a weird way to define "indie". The term is usually used to distinguish smaller teams from their bigger AA/AAA counterparts, and I think most people still consider Supergiant an indie studio.

Exactly. Indie doesn't come from the word new, it comes from the word independent. Are you a team detached from the traditional large players in the industry. Yes? Then you're indie.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#152

Post by therealdrag0 »

physicles wrote: post #92

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 nati…

Mmm love deathmatch. Thanks for the tip.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#153

Post by Shish2k »

dom96 wrote: post #33
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #19

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

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).

If you have a sufficiently large amount of hype, day 1 sales can give you enough runway for a redemption arc. NMS and CP2077 were two of the most hyped games in history and they barely managed it though, so I’m not sure it applies to the general case.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#154

Post by masfoobar »

devnullbrain wrote: post #75
Goronmon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Poisoned"? Or just more competitive? If you thought Half-Life was a "7/10" back in the day, what would you play instead? Quake? Unreal Tournament? Both were mainly multi-player games and not really a direct alternative.

Other games that released in 1998: - Ocarina of Time - Final Fantasy VII - Baldur's Gate - Starcraft - Metal Gear Solid - Resident Evil 2 - Pokemon Yellow If only it was as competitive as 2023, in which some of the top games were: - A Zelda game - A Final Fantasy game - A Resident Evil remake - A Baldur's Gate game

1998 was a great year for gaming... as a N64 and PC gamer (voodoo2 graphics)

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#155

Post by masfoobar »

qiine wrote: post #53
nickpeterson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

they fixate on the Carmack's but forgot that the Romero's are important too !

"they fixate on the Carmack's but forgot that the Romero's are important too !"

Very true -- You can create an amazing game engine (carmack) but it wont sell unless you have talented people pushing it capabilities (romero)

From memory, referring to Doom and Quake 1, Romero built the level editor for said games. Quake, I believe, was created on NextStep machines. Romero (and others) were also the ideas of creating the world.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#156

Post by masfoobar »

smcl wrote: post #30
pipes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar with goldeneye team, I think only one team member had done game Dev before (or something like that).

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.

I feel the 90s is a missed opportunity for someone like myself. If I was just a few years older... I could have been one of those "programmers" given opportunities.

Building games today is a different beast, comparable to making a movie.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#157

Post by bonton89 »

devnullbrain wrote: post #72
eur0pa wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is with these "AAA" games. I've spent a dozen years having great fun with perfectly enjoyable and memorable 7/10 games. Nowadays a 7/10 is a death sentence for a gaming studio. The industry is poisoned.

I see it as overspecialisation. When GTA 6 costs 10 years and a billion dollars, it needs to be an unmatched hit. But what if it's just bad on a conceptual level? More money can create more models, textures and 'content' but it can't create fun. For GTA 3, it would have been a setback for a year. For GTA 6, it could be fatal.

I remember reading Bullfrog would take the engine from their last game and build a prototype to play to see if it was any fun. Then they'd throw it away and start over.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#158

Post by riffruff24 »

bombcar wrote: post #78
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reading the Factorio blogs shows their progression from "developer" to "game developer" to "top-tier game developers" - it took years. You could likely do the same today, but the key would be finding someone (like Gabe) to fund it whilst it got off the ground.

I imagine you will see similar things with Icefrog, in their tenure as the custodian of DotA map in Warcraft 3. Balancing a competitive game is something that even Blizzard struggle with.

(well, Icefrog isn't burdened by the need for monetization.)

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#159

Post by riffruff24 »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #89
rib3ye wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow audiences will respect effort vs resources as long as there is community outreach and the price makes sense. There are a lot of 5/10 games that are successful on Steam because the devs set the right expectations for the experience. Recently Vampire Survivors comes to mind. Definitely a 6/10, but something about the balance of no-effort art and masterful game tuning makes it VERY sticky.

> Vampire Survivors comes to mind. Definitely a 6/10 That's fighting talk round my way! There's something they've got incredibly right between the no-thinking gameplay and the gradual progression through the various secrets and unlocks. I thought I'd grown tired of it after finishing the base game and not being bothered about gold farming, but I bought the DLC the other week and I was instantly hooked again.

Same thing with Dead Cells and Slay the Spire. Many similar games but very few of them managed to imitate the delicate balance of carrot and stick.

Re: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]

#160

Post by riffruff24 »

Blackthorn wrote: post #127
chucky_z wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just got the OLED Steam Deck the spark is not gone!! Valve is still the same company, they’re just succeeding in very different ways. I think this is the benefit of not being a public company. They’ve pivoted over and over and over. They’re still in the same space (video games) and the breadth of the areas they’re in are immense!

Yeah, this. They don't have a ton of releases, but their batting average is insane. I can think of only one really notable failure (Artifact). So many of their other releases have been industry changing in many different ways.

And who could forget their 2010 masterpiece, Alien Swarm. To this day I believe they only created it as an exercise. It's also free.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/630/Alien_Swarm/

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