Missed the chance to call it “Actinium”
Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
61–70 of 277 posts
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately VR also showed the flipside of Valves approach to development - putting extreme amounts of money and effort into a project, then abruptly dropping it and moving on to something else. The Index was great at the time but now it's five years old, dated in numerous aspects, and hasn't even had a price cut since launch. Alyx is great but it came out four years ago and Valve has done nothing with VR games sin…
I've been patiently waiting for an index 2 or a price cut. I will continue to patiently wait. I threw my CV1 that I bought secondhand in the trash when facebook bought oculus then forced login. Maybe I'll return to the market when it supplies something I want.
For better or worse Facebook are the ones keeping VR on life support, without them it would have flatlined years ago. They have the only good affordable headsets, they throw tons of money around to bankroll VR game studios in exchange for exclusivity, and even for games they don't bankroll it's a no-brainer to prioritize their platform because >90% of sales happen there.
https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/1849543449906942094
Even the minority who do buy VR games on Steam are mostly playing them on a cheap Meta headset, so without Meta those sales might not have happened either. The most recent Steam hardware survey shows that of the users who have a VR headset, nearly two thirds of them are using an Oculus/Meta model.
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#63In the video doc they talk about the failure to execute on Episode 3 or even a Half Life 3. Has a weird tone to it, the whole thing ends on a depressing note.
As Gabe says, they didn't fulfill their obligation towards their customer and fan base to complete the story. Alyx is cool, but niche.
Oh well, Half Life 3 not confirmed, yet again.
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#64If you want a fun way to revisit the game but don't want to replay, the 50min "Developers React to 50 Minute Speedrun" is a ton of fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK_PdwL5Y8g It highlights some of the architectural decisions (and how players exploit them), and has gems such as one of the commentators having their entire section skipped by the speedrunner.
> gems such as one of the commentators having their entire section skipped by the speedrunner
The day that dev looked at player time-location heatmaps, investigated outliers, and then cried...
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steam can delete a game from your account, they can't delete a cd that I physically have with me. Why does this even need to be spelled out...
Not contradicting your point, but adding tangential interesting information. Blu-Ray UHD discs can no longer be played on modern computers as Intel has removed the trusted execution environment needed to decrypt them. Blu-Ray UHD players do a handshake that verifies the use of Intel SGX. One might have always been skeptical of these discs, especially as AMD had never implemented those TEE instructions. But I believe…
Why hasn’t the requisite software been updated to perform a non-SGX handshake? That seems like a yawning oversight. o_O
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not contradicting your point, but adding tangential interesting information. Blu-Ray UHD discs can no longer be played on modern computers as Intel has removed the trusted execution environment needed to decrypt them. Blu-Ray UHD players do a handshake that verifies the use of Intel SGX. One might have always been skeptical of these discs, especially as AMD had never implemented those TEE instructions. But I believe…
Why hasn’t the requisite software been updated to perform a non-SGX handshake? That seems like a yawning oversight. o_O
The UHD DRM scheme requires some kind of secure enclave for key management, and SGX was the only suitable system for that on PCs. There is no non-SGX system they would certify.
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when you buy an album on CD you just license it for personal use, you can't play it on the radio or in a commercial space. "Buying" a copy of some intellectual property always had strings attached even in the age of physical media.
Steam can delete a game from your account, they can't delete a cd that I physically have with me. Why does this even need to be spelled out...
True but a lot of games require an online launcher to even start, even if they are also distributed on physical media
I buy most of my games on GOG for that reason. At least you can download a DRM-free copy that can never be taken away.
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#6820-25 years ago a handful of companies had a weird hold on me. I’d jump on anything Google made back then. Blizzard could sell me any game they came up with. If it was from Blizzard, it was gonna be great. Lost all of it obviously. Not a single company has my loyalty anymore. Except if valve were to release a mystery black box with faint lambda symbol on it. I’d pay whatever they asked for it.
That's pretty much exactly the logic that got me to buy a Valve Index + Half Life Alyx and it was totally worth it . VR turned out to be cooler than I expected and both the game and the Index were just so satisfyingly well-executed. It's nice to have products which clearly had far more attention to detail and quality than was economically necessary. It's clearly the result of a different philosophy than I've seen at…
Try Metro Awakening too. It came out a week ago and I'm really impressed. Gameplay is excellent. It's no Alyx but it's good. And even on my old Quest 2 it doesn't look too horrible on the device itself (without PC)
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's pretty much exactly the logic that got me to buy a Valve Index + Half Life Alyx and it was totally worth it . VR turned out to be cooler than I expected and both the game and the Index were just so satisfyingly well-executed. It's nice to have products which clearly had far more attention to detail and quality than was economically necessary. It's clearly the result of a different philosophy than I've seen at…
Unfortunately VR also showed the flipside of Valves approach to development - putting extreme amounts of money and effort into a project, then abruptly dropping it and moving on to something else. The Index was great at the time but now it's five years old, dated in numerous aspects, and hasn't even had a price cut since launch. Alyx is great but it came out four years ago and Valve has done nothing with VR games sin…
VR continues to lack a Killer App to sustain the field (I say this as owner of 3 VR devices, including the Index)
Valve tried to make it with Alyx, and while it is amazing, it did not inspire the industry to follow up on.
I do not blame Valve for moving on when nobody followed them.
Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update
#70Fixes
> Reduced chances of birds getting stuck in the world.
I really think I give it a replay. It was such a great game and truly started a new area of gaming.