THE BORE

General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: Mr Gilhaney on November 18, 2019, 06:45:53 PM

Title: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on November 18, 2019, 06:45:53 PM
Thanks Gaben

https://twitter.com/valvesoftware/status/1196566870360387584


 :rejoice
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 18, 2019, 06:47:19 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJsUZeWWoAEUPv3?format=png&name=small)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Great Rumbler on November 18, 2019, 06:59:46 PM
 :goty
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: thisismyusername on November 18, 2019, 07:07:39 PM
:goty

Think of it this way:

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1196571167139811329

Valve skipped 3 and went to 4. :rejoice

Left 4 Dead 4 when then!?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Joe Molotov on November 18, 2019, 07:17:19 PM
Thanks, I hate it.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nuitangg on November 18, 2019, 07:23:51 PM
Will this come with a release date?  :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tuckers Law on November 18, 2019, 07:25:55 PM
If I can only play in VR and can’t use my PSVR headset, then fuck you GabeN.   :rage
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 18, 2019, 09:13:40 PM
will wait for Valve game where I use the gravity gun to place packages on the Buggy and then drive along seemingly endless viaducts to deliver them
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 18, 2019, 09:18:20 PM
i might get vr for this, probably not an index though
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: kingv on November 18, 2019, 09:20:29 PM
will wait for Valve game where I use the gravity gun to place packages on the Buggy and then drive along seemingly endless viaducts to deliver them

Game of forever.

HL2 was so overrated.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on November 18, 2019, 09:20:52 PM
My buddy gave me his old Vive and I hooked it up last night and was like "god wtf am I ever gonna do with this"

then this drops

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP MILHOUSE
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Joe Molotov on November 18, 2019, 10:00:49 PM
Hopefully it's a vr waifu simulator. :rejoice
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Eel O'Brian on November 18, 2019, 10:04:03 PM
"Remember that chick in half life 2 you wanted to fuck back when you were 15? Well get ready to snatch your Willie all over again, she's in VR now! HINT: Steam Workshop, wink-wink nudge-nudge! Oh and for those of you wanting that ending we promised like 15 years ago GO FUCK YOURSELVES. WE CAN'T STRESS THAT ENOUGH."
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on November 19, 2019, 01:11:09 AM
So this is essentially Valve's Farpoint?

Wonder if theyre hoping it moves enough hardware to make up for the fact that it won't turn a profit at a software level.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 19, 2019, 02:02:10 AM
Half Life 3 being VR only is unironically what i want.
VR is amazing, HL3 can't just be another random FPS anyway.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: mormapope on November 19, 2019, 03:12:20 AM
Might as well been announced as a 3DS  or Vita game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on November 19, 2019, 04:59:50 AM
Haha no fuckinf way
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Occam on November 19, 2019, 07:17:31 AM
Cool. Got to get people to start buying VR somehow. It's for the best.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Rufus on November 19, 2019, 07:55:31 AM
Makes sense. Don't know when, if ever, I'll buy a VR headset, but it's good that this exists.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on November 19, 2019, 08:54:02 AM
Might as well been announced as a 3DS  or Vita game.


(https://i.imgur.com/bXhS8Ju.png)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TakingBackSunday on November 19, 2019, 09:32:49 AM
If it’s a fucking prequel I will fucking die
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 09:35:21 AM
these valve cocksuckers got me shopping around for vr headsets on the announcement of an announcement :maf
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on November 19, 2019, 09:59:15 AM
If it’s a fucking prequel I will fucking die

It is
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 19, 2019, 10:40:29 AM
Might as well been announced as a 3DS  or Vita game.


(https://i.imgur.com/bXhS8Ju.png)

What am I looking at here
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 19, 2019, 10:44:19 AM
If it’s a fucking prequel I will fucking die
The sequel's plot was already revealed on that one blog post.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: paprikastaude on November 19, 2019, 11:11:47 AM
So potentially the first must have exclusive for VR since Astrobot... and it's on another headset :neogaf :picard
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: mormapope on November 19, 2019, 11:45:41 AM
Half Life 3 being VR only is unironically what i want.
VR is amazing, HL3 can't just be another random FPS anyway.

I've defended Valve in the past. A big reason why being I was honestly expecting a revival of their core franchises across the board. With all those games being on a completely new engine hat would be a sequel to Source.

Like, Left 4 Dead 3, Team Fortress 3, Half Life 3, and Portal 3. All on the new engine that would be the successor to Source. This was a lot of hoping on my part, but this path would make a lot of sense for Valve.

Instead Valve hasn't done anything worthwhile for a very long time.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 11:54:32 AM
Source 2 runs three games under the most popular valve IP, Dota :wag :lol :gloomy
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 19, 2019, 11:57:20 AM
And this could be the first worthwhile thing they're doing in a long time.

If they really put effort in this thing, it could have the impact physics had in Half Life 2.
Half Life 3 with just better graphics and the same old gameplay, wouldn't have impressed anyone, anyway.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 11:58:55 AM
in all honesty, vr is cool as fuck for arcadey games and goofy minigame stuff but there's not much else there and most of what's there is junk, so vr isn't worth the investment for me.

but if valve could make an actually good fps with a narrative in vr it will probably be pretty good compared to what these other companies are putting out and i'd be very likely to pick up at least an oculus quest.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: I'm a Puppy! on November 19, 2019, 01:43:26 PM
Remember the deathstar?!
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 19, 2019, 03:06:26 PM
If it’s a fucking prequel I will fucking die

F
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: mormapope on November 19, 2019, 03:31:08 PM
Valve's approach to VR development is pretty amazing internally;  they focus on each individual concept and get loads of feedback from their employees.  They've been thoroughly testing just about every VR concept for years. 

I have pretty high confidence HLA is going to be evolutionary if not revolutionary for VR based on what I've heard.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how much Valve's own VR headset with controllers and base stations costs. I'd assume Half Life Assyx would work best with what Valve most likely used to develop the game.

A thousand fucking dollars. There are definitely much more affordable VR headsets out there, but fuck Valve for going in this direction to begin with.

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 19, 2019, 03:35:54 PM
Valve's approach to VR development is pretty amazing internally;  they focus on each individual concept and get loads of feedback from their employees.  They've been thoroughly testing just about every VR concept for years. 

I have pretty high confidence HLA is going to be evolutionary if not revolutionary for VR based on what I've heard.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how much Valve's own VR headset with controllers and base stations costs. I'd assume Half Life Assyx would work best with what Valve most likely used to develop the game.

A thousand fucking dollars. There are definitely much more affordable VR headsets out there, but fuck Valve for going in this direction to begin with.



By the time this comes out in 2025 VR stuff should be dirt cheap.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 03:52:09 PM
Durante just posted on Metacouncil about this but it seems the Index (valve's thing) is basically futureproofing for years ahead. It supports 144hz which basically no vr games run at right now, among other things.

He said that while the Index is top dog right now, the Oculus Rift S is less than half the price ($350 for black friday) and will have no problem running PCVR stuff including whatever Half-Life Alyx is, and is a great VR headset to have,  plus the Oculus Quest (no wires vr) should work too cause you can run it off a PC now just by buying a USB-C cable.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: kingv on November 19, 2019, 04:44:22 PM
I’m looking heavily at a quest. Completely wireless sounds pretty cool. (Yes I realize it won’t run this wirelessly).
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 04:52:36 PM
i guess that'll be 350 on black friday too and comes with some (probably dumb) darth vader game
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 19, 2019, 05:25:29 PM
quest is rad.

you need a big playspace though, and it's stuck at 72hz. index is stupid expensive, but more comfortable both physically and visually.

i love the quest, it's great value for money but i really look forward to a lighter (or better weight balanced), higher framerate successor (res is fine).
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 19, 2019, 05:26:37 PM
if you only plan on pcvr vive pro is another option. going back to og vive / oculus feels like going back to SDTV  :donot
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tuckers Law on November 19, 2019, 05:38:28 PM
If I can only play in VR and can’t use my PSVR headset, then fuck you GabeN.   :rage
PSVR (PS4) means you always have to be facing the TV, have to have perfect lighting, and the "best" controllers that could be used are those sub-Wii monstrosities.

Modern VR is way past that :patel

Right, but I can’t afford any of that shit.  That’s why I’m using the gimpy PSVR!
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on November 19, 2019, 05:47:28 PM
I've got a RTX 2070 Super. I'm super ready for this.

Cyberpunk, Half Life VR
 :rejoice :drool :lawd

Thanks beta testers  8)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Coffee Dog on November 19, 2019, 08:08:13 PM
Valve hasn't released single player shooter content in over a decade. Half Life 3 was cancelled the last time they tried to make one.

I'm sure that the VR will add a bunch of fun gimmicks, but I don't know why I'd assume the actual game will be good. Because that's all this is right, a shooter?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 19, 2019, 08:10:15 PM
oh i thought it was a dating sim. preorder cancelled.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 19, 2019, 08:21:48 PM
Nice that this news hit just after I upgraded and right when Oculus Link landed.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on November 19, 2019, 11:55:20 PM
Let's put this in perspective sales wise:

No VR game to date has topped more than about 1.5mm units

The PSVR is the only headset on the market in excess of 2 million owned (unless you want to count joke devices like Gear or Cardboard).

Valve's flagship headset is currently one of (if not the, I forget exactly) most expensive headsets on the market.

Even Oculus' brand new NON PREMIUM headset is failing to gain major traction (the Quest).

For a 10ish hour campaign at modern high end VR levels you are looking at easily $45-$50mm for development.

I am incredibly astonished that a company where people have grown incredibly adverse to taking on any project that isn't 100% gonna make them rich greenlight this.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: team filler on November 19, 2019, 11:57:54 PM
for switch?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tuckers Law on November 20, 2019, 01:28:49 AM
Let's put this in perspective sales wise:

No VR game to date has topped more than about 1.5mm units

The PSVR is the only headset on the market in excess of 2 million owned (unless you want to count joke devices like Gear or Cardboard).

Valve's flagship headset is currently one of (if not the, I forget exactly) most expensive headsets on the market.

Even Oculus' brand new NON PREMIUM headset is failing to gain major traction (the Quest).

For a 10ish hour campaign at modern high end VR levels you are looking at easily $45-$50mm for development.

I am incredibly astonished that a company where people have grown incredibly adverse to taking on any project that isn't 100% gonna make them rich greenlight this.

Valve is already rich as shit though.  My thinking is that nearly all the valve employees are living in a glorious VR hardware bubble at their office, where the best and latest VR tech is available for use without any of them being forced to confront the user concerns of cost and space.  So they feel that’s the thing they most want to work on, unaware that an awful lot of their fan base still is not willing to pay the premium required, or cannot due to issues of space.

Assuming it won’t have an option for playing without VR, I don’t think it’ll go over nearly as well as they’re hoping.  Better than Artifact, but still much worse than they’d hope.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 20, 2019, 01:37:38 AM
Valve's approach to VR development is pretty amazing internally;  they focus on each individual concept and get loads of feedback from their employees.  They've been thoroughly testing just about every VR concept for years. 

I have pretty high confidence HLA is going to be evolutionary if not revolutionary for VR based on what I've heard.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how much Valve's own VR headset with controllers and base stations costs. I'd assume Half Life Assyx would work best with what Valve most likely used to develop the game.

A thousand fucking dollars. There are definitely much more affordable VR headsets out there, but fuck Valve for going in this direction to begin with.
???
I don't get this.

Valve are the ones pushing for open VR, so they're the only ones (of the major 3 players in the space) actively supporting people getting whatever the fuck headset they want to play anything.
Sony requires you to have a PS4 and play in their space, and Oculus is easy to crack, but still theoretically requires you to have a Rift to use their games.
HL:A will be playable therefore, with as many devices it's reasonably and physically possible to do so.

Beyond that, VR requires you buy new (relatively expensive) hardware because of physical limitations, not some arbitrary gate-keeping; if they want to develop the game in VR, there is literally nothing else they can do about it, short of giving you hardware for free.  :yeshrug
And of course if they DO want to make a proper VR game, they can't just make a "desktop version" like many are asking.
They could develop some cheaper hardware VR option, but those options are already out there, and them being Open VR, means they don't need to supply you the HW themselves.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Occam on November 20, 2019, 10:24:48 AM
That's the cool thing about being a private company: They can do whatever they want, just for fun. They have more money than they would ever spend otherwise. They don't have to care about the idiocy known as shareholder value or waste money buying back shares in order to artificially inflate their stock market value.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: chronovore on November 20, 2019, 09:48:55 PM
Remember the deathstar?!

:slow_applause.gif
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Akala on November 21, 2019, 12:02:56 AM
So what are odds they throw a bone and give at least a little closure for HL fans as an aside or anything?

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Rufus on November 21, 2019, 12:20:52 AM
So what are odds they throw a bone and give at least a little closure for HL fans as an aside or anything?
"Fan" fiction from the man himself. This is as good as it's going to get, I think.
https://www.marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on November 21, 2019, 03:36:41 AM
Let's put this in perspective sales wise:

No VR game to date has topped more than about 1.5mm units

The PSVR is the only headset on the market in excess of 2 million owned (unless you want to count joke devices like Gear or Cardboard).

Valve's flagship headset is currently one of (if not the, I forget exactly) most expensive headsets on the market.

Even Oculus' brand new NON PREMIUM headset is failing to gain major traction (the Quest).

For a 10ish hour campaign at modern high end VR levels you are looking at easily $45-$50mm for development.

I am incredibly astonished that a company where people have grown incredibly adverse to taking on any project that isn't 100% gonna make them rich greenlight this.

Valve is already rich as shit though.  My thinking is that nearly all the valve employees are living in a glorious VR hardware bubble at their office, where the best and latest VR tech is available for use without any of them being forced to confront the user concerns of cost and space.  So they feel that’s the thing they most want to work on, unaware that an awful lot of their fan base still is not willing to pay the premium required, or cannot due to issues of space.

Assuming it won’t have an option for playing without VR, I don’t think it’ll go over nearly as well as they’re hoping.  Better than Artifact, but still much worse than they’d hope.

God I completely forgot about the Artifact disaster. But the bubble you're talking about makes sense. I guess they also just want people buying into VR and they feel nothing on the horizon is gonna do it (and to be honest based on rumored stuff the only thing comparable is Medal of Honor which when shown did not look to move the needle for most casual enthusiasts).

Yeah they are not exactly hurting for money and it is a great place to work.

Have to travel for work?  They'll pay for your partner/spouse to travel with you.   

Used to a once a year party at your company?  Valve did there's in Hawaii last year and paid for everyone to stay in a resort for a week.

I've heard it's actually kind of a terrible place to work and that very few projects get greenlight anymore because the old guard basically act like share holders who won't agree to anything that isn't gonna get them another yacht.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: thisismyusername on November 21, 2019, 07:16:18 AM
Let's put this in perspective sales wise:

No VR game to date has topped more than about 1.5mm units

The PSVR is the only headset on the market in excess of 2 million owned (unless you want to count joke devices like Gear or Cardboard).

Valve's flagship headset is currently one of (if not the, I forget exactly) most expensive headsets on the market.

Even Oculus' brand new NON PREMIUM headset is failing to gain major traction (the Quest).

For a 10ish hour campaign at modern high end VR levels you are looking at easily $45-$50mm for development.

I am incredibly astonished that a company where people have grown incredibly adverse to taking on any project that isn't 100% gonna make them rich greenlight this.

Valve is already rich as shit though.  My thinking is that nearly all the valve employees are living in a glorious VR hardware bubble at their office, where the best and latest VR tech is available for use without any of them being forced to confront the user concerns of cost and space.  So they feel that’s the thing they most want to work on, unaware that an awful lot of their fan base still is not willing to pay the premium required, or cannot due to issues of space.

Assuming it won’t have an option for playing without VR, I don’t think it’ll go over nearly as well as they’re hoping.  Better than Artifact, but still much worse than they’d hope.

Valve not understanding their userbase? Quelle Surprise!  :anhuld

Artifact is also supposedly getting reworked, for the record. :expert
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nuitangg on November 21, 2019, 11:57:18 AM
It would be great if Valve made this available today.  :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 21, 2019, 12:54:05 PM
I hope there are lots of idiot tears when it's confirmed this is VR only. A lot of people still seem to be in denial.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Ghoul on November 21, 2019, 01:09:12 PM
Half life 2.5 lmao.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 21, 2019, 01:23:45 PM
Gotta say, I was just about to buy an Index for this, but then I saw that I need a base station and ew external tracking sensors.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on November 21, 2019, 01:42:04 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9K0eJEmMEw

 :thinking
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 01:48:06 PM
I wonder how VR works if you get vertigo easily. Everything I’ve read is “seated with teleporting is ok, fast moving probably not”, I’m guessing valve would have a plethora of options since it’s the “flagship vr title”
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Rufus on November 21, 2019, 02:08:20 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2W0N3uKXmo

Some screens:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/11/21/half-life-alyx-4k-screenshots/
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 21, 2019, 02:09:54 PM
I get ton of motion sickness with FPS games, had to fight through it to beat Half Life 2 and its episodes, ironically.

Anyway, the trailer has me hyped as shit, i think it looks great.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 02:25:38 PM
I wonder how VR works if you get vertigo easily. Everything I’ve read is “seated with teleporting is ok, fast moving probably not”, I’m guessing valve would have a plethora of options since it’s the “flagship vr title”

Yup

Yeah I’m probably just gonna get an index eventually. But first I’m holding out until the new amd cpus and nvidia cards in 2020. I have a budget of $2500 for the pc alone (less is obv better, just wanted some wiggle room dpending on how much fuckery nvidia pulls). And man it’s gonna be hard waiting till next summer/fall watching everyone else enjoy their PC RDR2s, cyberpunk, and now this.

 :mjcry
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Rufus on November 21, 2019, 02:42:30 PM
I wonder how VR works if you get vertigo easily. Everything I’ve read is “seated with teleporting is ok, fast moving probably not”, I’m guessing valve would have a plethora of options since it’s the “flagship vr title”

Yup
Halfway down the page they show all the ways you can play.
https://half-life.com/en/alyx/vr
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 21, 2019, 02:48:26 PM
God, some of the reactions to this are ...  ::)

"VR needs a killer app!"
*announces AAA Half Life game*
"Why is this game VR?!"

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 02:51:21 PM
Ya I think it'll be Oculus for me. I'm into this but not $1000 into this, also I don't want to re-arrange my whole house for roomscale
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 03:14:55 PM
Truth be told I’m just valve content starved since 2011. And that’s why I’m interested. The idea of VR to me is eh whatever. Call me when we jack into full body matrix like simulations. At the end of the day this is still just 2 lcd screen in front of your eyes, but now with better fidelity.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Joe Molotov on November 21, 2019, 03:18:37 PM
Get a Big Black Cockulus Rift
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 21, 2019, 04:02:04 PM
Truth be told I’m just valve content starved since 2011. And that’s why I’m interested. The idea of VR to me is eh whatever. Call me when we jack into full body matrix like simulations. At the end of the day this is still just 2 lcd screen in front of your eyes, but now with better fidelity.
If you play something like Subnautica on a monitor and then in VR (as unoptimized for VR as that game is) the difference in experience is pretty apparent.
It's basically a different medium, which is one of the reasons why it has so many growing pains, with people constantly trying to transpose 2d screen gaming mechanics developed over the last 30 years,  into it.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on November 21, 2019, 04:10:39 PM
Looks good, fucking hyped.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 04:20:13 PM
Truth be told I’m just valve content starved since 2011. And that’s why I’m interested. The idea of VR to me is eh whatever. Call me when we jack into full body matrix like simulations. At the end of the day this is still just 2 lcd screen in front of your eyes, but now with better fidelity.
If you play something like Subnautica on a monitor and then in VR (as unoptimized for VR as that game is) the difference in experience is pretty apparent.
It's basically a different medium, which is one of the reasons why it has so many growing pains, with people constantly trying to transpose 2d screen gaming mechanics developed over the last 30 years,  into it.

I’ll have to see, if my vertigo kicks then in it won’t really matter how great the vr experience can be.  :(
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 21, 2019, 04:27:01 PM
Truth be told I’m just valve content starved since 2011. And that’s why I’m interested. The idea of VR to me is eh whatever. Call me when we jack into full body matrix like simulations. At the end of the day this is still just 2 lcd screen in front of your eyes, but now with better fidelity.
If you play something like Subnautica on a monitor and then in VR (as unoptimized for VR as that game is) the difference in experience is pretty apparent.
It's basically a different medium, which is one of the reasons why it has so many growing pains, with people constantly trying to transpose 2d screen gaming mechanics developed over the last 30 years,  into it.

I’ll have to see, if my vertigo kicks then in it won’t really matter how great the vr experience can be.  :(
That's a really issue, i won't lie, as i said i get really motion sick from regular FPSs, and VR gets to me too.
The difference is that with VR, they at least try to develop games AROUND that issue (so they can be played in short bursts, they have comfort options etc).

---

Something that gets me excited is also this part:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/half-life.com/images/alyx/hammer_editor.jpg)
Quote
A set of Source 2 tools for building new levels will be available for the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game's virtual reality gameplay tools and components.

If the modding support is even a fraction of what Half Life got... :lawd

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 04:28:31 PM
Damn, open box Vives (non pro) are selling for around the cost of a Rift :hmm Might have to redo the office if I get one though.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 21, 2019, 04:29:41 PM
updated Source tools that aren't garbage was a meme before Half-Life 3 was :doge

spoiler (click to show/hide)
One of the claims about the transition to Source 2 was that it was needed to get away from the dependencies of Source that caused this problem. :lol
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 04:45:50 PM

That's a really issue, i won't lie, as i said i get really motion sick from regular FPSs, and VR gets to me too.
The difference is that with VR, they at least try to develop games AROUND that issue (so they can be played in short bursts, they have comfort options etc).

---

Something that gets me excited is also this part:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/half-life.com/images/alyx/hammer_editor.jpg)
Quote
A set of Source 2 tools for building new levels will be available for the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game's virtual reality gameplay tools and components.

If the modding support is even a fraction of what Half Life got... :lawd




I googled a bit and people with vertigo have been able to play games, depends on the person, game, and locomotion methods obviously. I guess in my case it would be start small, seated obviously, with teleporting (I guess?), and go for more walking simulators first. Not “run across the room to throw stuff off a bookshelf looking for ammo to load in a few seconds before you have to 180 spin and take cover from the incoming combine soldiers. “

:dead
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 21, 2019, 04:48:31 PM
Teleporting works fine for most people that get VR sickness. It’s how I got used to it. I could do full nausea-inducing analog control at this point, though with some games I still have to use snap turns. Seems to vary game to game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 04:52:57 PM
alyx seems that it'll support a bunch of different setups and movement options, so that's nice

(https://i.imgur.com/flxWSiJ.png)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 21, 2019, 05:02:08 PM
alyx seems that it'll support a bunch of different setups and movement options, so that's nice

(https://i.imgur.com/flxWSiJ.png)

How would walking down a hall even work using room scale? the game would have to “realign” so you don’t go slamming into walls so it can’t be 1:1 can it?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 21, 2019, 05:07:40 PM
alyx seems that it'll support a bunch of different setups and movement options, so that's nice

(https://i.imgur.com/flxWSiJ.png)

How would walking down a hall even work using room scale? the game would have to “realign” so you don’t go slamming into walls so it can’t be 1:1 can it?
When you set up your "room scale" you set up boundaries for your space, and then it has a virtual grid in game, when you get close to the edge.
both Oculus and Vive have this, i think the new models even have cameras to show you video feed from your headset.

They don't expect you to replicate the in game space IRL, it's just about having some level of freedom to moving around (room scale) vs just your chair and some space to move your arms (sitting down one).
but in both case you'd still need to supplement that movement with the digital movement (teleporting, moving the analog stick, etc).
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Great Rumbler on November 21, 2019, 05:12:39 PM
Something that gets me excited is also this part:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/half-life.com/images/alyx/hammer_editor.jpg)
Quote
A set of Source 2 tools for building new levels will be available for the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game's virtual reality gameplay tools and components.

If the modding support is even a fraction of what Half Life got... :lawd

Garry's Mod 2.0 :gladbron
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 21, 2019, 05:14:03 PM
Garry's Mod just had a huge update that I read nothing about but kept seeing the message for in my new wonderful Steam Library that crashed the other day and could not be recovered until I restarted Steam like four times.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: chronovore on November 21, 2019, 05:40:32 PM
If it’s a fucking prequel I will fucking die

https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/21/20975860/valve-half-life-alyx-release-date-vr-announcement-first-screens-trailer
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 06:36:21 PM
it can't be a sequel cause eli is alive, looks like it takes place between HL1 and 2 so i guess not a real "prequel" either :P the rogue one of half lives

e: also i didn't realize "roomscale" just means 1x1 meter. that's a lot easier. i thought i needed an actual entire room dedicated to vr lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 21, 2019, 06:45:56 PM
Half-Life has messed with time distortion before, who's to say G-Man won't Q (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(Star_Trek)) Alyx to post-Episode 2 for a scene?

When you have am omniscient god character you can pretty much do anything narratively
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 21, 2019, 06:46:20 PM
Valve's approach to VR development is pretty amazing internally;  they focus on each individual concept and get loads of feedback from their employees.  They've been thoroughly testing just about every VR concept for years. 

I have pretty high confidence HLA is going to be evolutionary if not revolutionary for VR based on what I've heard.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how much Valve's own VR headset with controllers and base stations costs. I'd assume Half Life Assyx would work best with what Valve most likely used to develop the game.

A thousand fucking dollars. There are definitely much more affordable VR headsets out there, but fuck Valve for going in this direction to begin with.
???
I don't get this.

Valve are the ones pushing for open VR, so they're the only ones (of the major 3 players in the space) actively supporting people getting whatever the fuck headset they want to play anything.
Sony requires you to have a PS4 and play in their space, and Oculus is easy to crack, but still theoretically requires you to have a Rift to use their games.
HL:A will be playable therefore, with as many devices it's reasonably and physically possible to do so.

Beyond that, VR requires you buy new (relatively expensive) hardware because of physical limitations, not some arbitrary gate-keeping; if they want to develop the game in VR, there is literally nothing else they can do about it, short of giving you hardware for free.  :yeshrug
And of course if they DO want to make a proper VR game, they can't just make a "desktop version" like many are asking.
They could develop some cheaper hardware VR option, but those options are already out there, and them being Open VR, means they don't need to supply you the HW themselves.

it's also never going to get cheaper if it doesn't become popular with devs supporting it and popular software. VR headsets will be a popular accessory for Scarlett and PS5. im guessing HL: Alyx will be one of the only AAA cross platform titles on launch too. this is a bet on the future as much as anything.

it's not like HL hasn't been expensive to run initially in the past at peak settings. who had SLI Voodoo 3dfx glide cards in their pc in the 90s? for less than a grand you could get a Win ML headset and VR ready pc. this is classic high end PC stuff. don't get it on launch, entry cost will be a lot lower in the future.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 06:57:44 PM
Buying an 8800GT for HL2 :jeb
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 21, 2019, 07:24:39 PM
are you sure you don't mean like 6600 GT? A 8800GT seems massive overkill for HL2, it came out like three years later.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 07:48:28 PM
oops yeah that was it. got it for doom 3 and hl2. before that the best computer i had was a plastic macbook for school
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 21, 2019, 07:57:37 PM
6800GT was originally the "official" card for Doom 3 according to Carmack. Then nVidia went and made the 6600GT which was the first of that run of epic price/performance cards they had where revisions always wound up with more RAM and thus "better" than the flagships. 8800GT was the next one. Although that one turned out to even kill off the flagship GTS because of the process drop.

More proof of nVidia's blatant use of illegal numbers of transistors.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 21, 2019, 08:22:31 PM
i used student loan money to get that card :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Great Rumbler on November 21, 2019, 08:37:24 PM
i used student loan money to get that card :lol

I used pell grant money to buy my first PC.  :success
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: toku on November 21, 2019, 09:06:14 PM
the real half-life 3 was all the friends and memories we made along the way
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on November 21, 2019, 09:42:16 PM
I'll be buying a new GPU for this, buddy gave me his old Vive (he upgraded to an Index) but it chugs pretty bad with my 970
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: benjipwns on November 22, 2019, 07:04:29 AM
They could both be constructing OR re-constructing the Citadel in that image. :rollsafe
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Svejk on November 22, 2019, 09:19:40 AM
No PSVR, No Deal.  :derp
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 22, 2019, 01:48:16 PM
(https://abload.de/img/6ht7szzis30410vk2t.jpg)

:whew

(https://abload.de/img/byoze82t03041vlkwy.jpg)

:mindblown

(https://abload.de/img/hluntitledy8jyw.png)

:aah

OT: It’s funny if you put up the half life 1 gman, and then noted it was 4 years from 1 to 2 and 12 years from 2 to (not) 3. It’s kind of an example of how much diminishing returns have kicked in. Don’t get me wrong it looks good but I guess going from nes to ps3 era. PS3 era to now isn’t as impressive. Leather looks more like leather and hair looks more like sorta hair rather than hagridps1.jpg

On topic: it’s funny seeing RE hate on the VR or hope the next valve games aren’t vr. I just learned to assume the worst and see how it is. I’ll try VR and if it’s ok and I can tolerate it then great. And then worse case scenario it’s what “everything becomes VR” I can deal with it. Same as I did with streaming. Sure local is better quality, control, and moddable. But if convenience demands streaming be the only way now, then I have already tried it and it’ll be “playable” for the games I like to play in the future. But don’t think I won’t bitch when that negative latency guesses wrong and I am old man yelling at cloud (literally)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 22, 2019, 02:02:00 PM
Just impulse purchased Valve Index package for almost 1500 Canadian after duty fees. I barely meet the minimum requirements, but fuck it.

Glad I worked 70 hour weeks all summer. Now to eat mac and cheese from costco for a couple months. Oh, and find a way to tell my gf 😅
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 22, 2019, 02:34:35 PM
Just impulse purchased Valve Index package for almost 1500 Canadian after duty fees. I barely meet the minimum requirements, but fuck it.

Glad I worked 70 hour weeks all summer. Now to eat mac and cheese from costco for a couple months. Oh, and find a way to tell my gf 😅

And I thought I was bad with money...
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 22, 2019, 02:39:48 PM
In march of this year, I had 0 dollars to my name. Starting working a new job and got my first check the day before rent was due. Before purchasing the index, I had nearly 10G in the bank. I worked really hard, and this is how I'm rewarding myself. I have no debt.

Also, it's fucking Half Life!
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 22, 2019, 02:41:10 PM
Why impulse buy the index now? I mean it’s your money go for it. But personally I’m building a new rig before I’m dropping a grand for a headset.

Edit: I guess that make sense, it’s nice to treat yourself. I’d still have gone for the rig upgrade first tho. Then again I’m running a i5 2500k and a 970 that is finally starting to feel like a potato. But man did that 2500k last me a long time.... probably best bang for my buck I’ll ever have for gaming.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 22, 2019, 02:45:33 PM
Worried about it selling out. Can't even get a Steam Controller in Canada for less than 140 bucks off amazon. Really don't want to miss out. And in the meantime, I have lots of VR supported games.

I have an i7 7700k and a gtx1060. Will upgrade if half life plays like shit. Window is on a 256gb SSD and I got a 1TB SSD for programs last black Friday for a hundred bucks.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 22, 2019, 03:02:37 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/2TjpG38.png)

 :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on November 22, 2019, 03:32:38 PM
In march of this year, I had 0 dollars to my name. Starting working a new job and got my first check the day before rent was due. Before purchasing the index, I had nearly 10G in the bank. I worked really hard, and this is how I'm rewarding myself. I have no debt.

Also, it's fucking Half Life!

Providing this context in your original post would have preempted my reply. With that said, it's never a good situation fearing your girlfriend's reaction to a large purchase.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 22, 2019, 03:42:55 PM
In march of this year, I had 0 dollars to my name. Starting working a new job and got my first check the day before rent was due. Before purchasing the index, I had nearly 10G in the bank. I worked really hard, and this is how I'm rewarding myself. I have no debt.

Also, it's fucking Half Life!

Providing this context in your original post would have preempted my reply. With that said, it's never a good situation fearing your girlfriend's reaction to a large purchase.

Ha, no worries. I definitely hovered over the 'purchase' button for a minute. Telling gf shouldn't bea huge deal. She probably will just be confused why it interests me. That said, she spends 600 bucks on frames for her glasses, which I can't comprehend.

I also severely reduced my alcohol consumption in the last few months. Used to spend over 500 a month on booze and I'm now down to around 50. Now I have even more reason to cut it out completely.

My previous job that I lost due to a fire is also coming back in January, so I'll have tons of work through the winter which is usually a slow season for me. Just gotta keep slaving away.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 22, 2019, 03:46:03 PM
Love my occulus quest.

PokerStars Vr is the shit.
Nice, I'm pretty excited. Got the reddit recommended USB setup for linking to my PC as well, but I dunno how much I'll use Link before Half-Life. Probably more than I expect once I get into it.

At the very least I'll get the required VR games, Superhot and Beat Saber, on the Quest store. Plus it comes with the Darth Vader game. I imagine my Steam library already has VR supported games too, plus their free "tech demo" The Lab is supposed to be real solid.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 22, 2019, 03:58:51 PM
Check out Asgard’s Wrath when you get a chance. Or at least watch some vids and read some reviews. It’s pretty cool from what I played and it’s also a pretty big budget full-on game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Chooky on November 22, 2019, 05:47:24 PM
can't even remember the last time i saw a bunch of pc gamers rushing out to buy the latest tech just for that one cool new game. kinda wild
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 22, 2019, 06:09:30 PM
Check out Asgard’s Wrath when you get a chance. Or at least watch some vids and read some reviews. It’s pretty cool from what I played and it’s also a pretty big budget full-on game.
that definitely looks neat. i've been checking out other vr game trailers and lone echo kinds sticks out as something cool looking. any experience with that one?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 22, 2019, 08:52:18 PM
No, but I was curious about it. I’ll see if I can load it up tonight and give it a spin.

If you do get a Quest for Link, the Quest version of Superhot VR is the one to get. The Rift version is fine, but wireless is such a big add for that particular game and the graphics really don’t take much of a hit due to the style.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 22, 2019, 10:03:36 PM
You all inspired me to go into VR and make the WHITE POWER hand gesture at a dude from the Empire in Star Wars. It’s like we’re VR bros. But not real life bros. That would be bad.

(https://i.imgur.com/GNuLj46.jpg)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TEEEPO on November 22, 2019, 10:33:52 PM
 :shaking

fucking valve
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 22, 2019, 10:47:58 PM
Subnautica is THE game to try in VR, as unpolished as it is... just absolutely terrifying.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 22, 2019, 11:43:52 PM
Lone Echo seems pretty cool after two hours. Moving yourself around in zero gravity just be grabbing stuff and propelling yourself and using brief thruster bursts is a lot fun. Looks really nice for a 2+ year old game. Seems to have enough going for it for some decent environmental puzzlin’ and physics stuff. The controls for moving around work really well and feel natural. You’re going to want a nice clear radius around you though because you’re going to be grabbing around for stuff really quickly to change momentum and keep moving fast.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on November 23, 2019, 12:29:01 AM
Insomniac's big VR game just came out as well.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 23, 2019, 12:48:27 AM
Not a big trips game, but another cool recent one is Pistol Whip. It's kinda like a Time Crisis rail shooter/rhythm game inspired by John Wick and Superhot. It's arcadey and fun and pretty replayable. Also very easy for newbs to pick up without pyooking. This is on like every platform there is.

(check the 7-8 minute mark for a good taste)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sIUHht9CrI
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 23, 2019, 02:00:20 AM
yeah i think stuff like superhot, beat saber, and pistol whip i'll get on the quest store so i can run those right off the headset. when i can i'll try to get steam store games for all the other non-exclusive so i can still play them if i upgrade to index or whatever.

i do find it funny that the two most popular games (superhot and beat saber) also just happen to not be cross-buy between quest and rift stores. :lol pistol whip is though.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on November 23, 2019, 09:42:13 PM
https://twitter.com/finalhours/status/1198430602841640960 (https://twitter.com/finalhours/status/1198430602841640960)

This is really cool  8)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on November 23, 2019, 09:54:35 PM
One of our guys at work got a Oculus link spec-approved cable and tried it with the Quest. It basically works perfectly, I'm blown away. Nobody should buy a Rift S at this point.

Note that you should get a REALLY LONG cable tho, you won't be plugging this into a hub.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on November 24, 2019, 12:30:24 AM
Youtube and Reddit are saying this active extender is pretty good and is 16ft, so I grabbed that and a small USB-C to A cable.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0179MXKU8/

Also for anyone else just getting VR, you can buy any game on the Green Man Gaming store with a +5 on it and get 5 free VR games

Rock Band VR (Oculus Store)
Arizona Sunshine
Killing Floor Incursion
Sprint Vector
Star Trek Bridge Crew
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on November 24, 2019, 02:08:54 AM
One of our guys at work got a Oculus link spec-approved cable and tried it with the Quest. It basically works perfectly, I'm blown away. Nobody should buy a Rift S at this point.

Note that you should get a REALLY LONG cable tho, you won't be plugging this into a hub.
WTF, the Quest even has better screens (higher res OLEDs) and the only downside seems to be 75hz instead of 80hz refresh rate (which is still lower than the 90hz of the original rift)?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 24, 2019, 02:21:34 AM
72hz. I don’t think you’d notice an issue unless you’ve spent a lot of time on better headsets. It’s not painful of distracting or anything. I think Quest also has a different color space (or something) than Rift/Rift S but I dunno if it’s better or worse or just different.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 24, 2019, 07:00:45 AM
I have an i7 7700k and a gtx1060. Will upgrade if half life plays like shit.

are you looking to push 90 frames at native index rez?

start saving for that 1080ti.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 24, 2019, 07:07:55 AM
re: quest. I'm assuming waiting for the official 5m fibre optic link USB c cable will be worth it
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on November 24, 2019, 07:39:48 AM
re: quest. I'm assuming waiting for the official 5m fibre optic link USB c cable will be worth it

I haven’t been able to find cables that will work right now that are longer than 6 feet or so, and you really do need more
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 24, 2019, 04:44:01 PM
that's what Carmack said about the cable. they couldn't find an off the shelf product that worked at the length they feel is necessary so they made their own Link cable using fibre optics to get stable throughput. fibre optics aren't er, all that flexible. it'll be a copper cable incorporating some sort of fibre weave i assume. shit is going to be pricey. e: apparently it will be $79
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 24, 2019, 06:57:57 PM
I have an i7 7700k and a gtx1060. Will upgrade if half life plays like shit.

are you looking to push 90 frames at native index rez?

start saving for that 1080ti.

I just want to play it. That said, once the index shows up this week or next, I'll be trying a bunch of games, and if it isn't performing well, I'll look at upgrading before March 2020. I have the money, and not much of a life, so no big deal.

Also, told my gf about my purchase. She actually got excited and wants to try it. We are going to plan our bike trip overseas using Google Earth vr. I told her it cost more than I should have spent. She said 'oh, like 3 grand?' And I said, no, less than half that. She didn't care.  Said it's my money and to do what I want with it.

Saw I had a vr game to redeem from humble. 'Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes'. Looks fun. One person is in vr trying to defuse a bomb, and the other players are reading from a manual talking the defuser through the process based on what they see and describe. Sounds fun!
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on November 24, 2019, 07:19:45 PM
that's really good yeah! i play it with colleagues sometimes. rented 5 quests at work when it first came out and brought mine along for the week too, that was one of the games we had. a few teams here play it fairly regularly now. great communication exercise (the pc, non-vr version is almost as good, but the VR def makes it a bit more nerve wracking for the defuser).

i'd be surprised if you get more than 30fps with a 1060 in most VR games at the index resolution, and the more expensive features like supersampling become a lot more important in VR too.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: ZombieSupaStar on November 24, 2019, 08:25:29 PM
I think ill get an index but ill wait till next fall/winter probably though. I need the new pc first. I hope nvidias 3000 series is decent. I have a feeling it'll be another $600-1000 buy in for the good cards though. Getting my 970 gtx back in the days for like $325 seems like a steal nowadays. I actually got like a $70 rebate from amazon after that the last 512 megs of vram memory was crippled story came out.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on November 29, 2019, 02:13:48 PM
We'll it sold out, so I'm glad I pulled the trigger when I did. Shipped this morning, should get it next week! Bought Superhot VR and Trovor Saves the Universe.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Rufus on December 19, 2019, 12:41:37 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T54aGkkXfuc
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on January 06, 2020, 05:52:46 PM
.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Coffee Dog on March 02, 2020, 02:39:22 PM
About ten minutes of gameplay:
https://youtu.be/30v1UWkMBlU

Well, it certainly looks like a Half Life game in VR.

Personally I'm not really into this. A lot of the added "benefit" of VR here is removing the shorthand we have in games, and I feel that shorthand has a whole host of added benefits beyond it simply functioning as a replacement for using my whole arm to open the door. If you give me the option of hitting E to open a door, and using my whole arm, I'd rather hit E because the investment in the action is lighter and that opening doors isn't the point of the game. It' a quick, instant response that gets me back into the decisions that matter (ie the shooting).  Same thing with individually prying off panels of wood; Gordon has a crowbar for this that makes work this in about two seconds. It's a game that unsolves a bunch of solved FPS problems so that you can solve them less efficiently in VR. I get why it exists, people want to throw around packing peanuts, it just seems at odds with itself. I was already throwing around physics objects and fucking around with the gravity gun 15 years ago, it seems to make about as much difference on the quality of the game now as it did back then (not much)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TEEEPO on March 02, 2020, 06:54:33 PM
when the player switches the controls over to continuous hand :whew
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: El Babua on March 03, 2020, 12:27:10 AM
In a grand reversal of 16 years earlier, I'm more hyped for the Doom game coming out than the Half-Life game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 03, 2020, 09:36:32 AM
I'm hyped for this, but i don't want to watch anything, since it's probably gonna be short enough already.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: wsippel on March 03, 2020, 09:59:33 AM
Well, it certainly looks like a Half Life game in VR.

Personally I'm not really into this. A lot of the added "benefit" of VR here is removing the shorthand we have in games, and I feel that shorthand has a whole host of added benefits beyond it simply functioning as a replacement for using my whole arm to open the door. If you give me the option of hitting E to open a door, and using my whole arm, I'd rather hit E because the investment in the action is lighter and that opening doors isn't the point of the game. It' a quick, instant response that gets me back into the decisions that matter (ie the shooting).  Same thing with individually prying off panels of wood; Gordon has a crowbar for this that makes work this in about two seconds. It's a game that unsolves a bunch of solved FPS problems so that you can solve them less efficiently in VR. I get why it exists, people want to throw around packing peanuts, it just seems at odds with itself. I was already throwing around physics objects and fucking around with the gravity gun 15 years ago, it seems to make about as much difference on the quality of the game now as it did back then (not much)

Do you have any experience playing VR games? Because the interactivity makes a huge difference. You're not just opening a door, you have options. You can open it halfway or all the way, slam it open or do it slowly and quietly, open it halfway with one hand and reach around with your other hand to drop a grenade, then quickly close it - it makes you think and see opportunities in things that would be "just a door" in regular games.


I'm hyped for this, but i don't want to watch anything, since it's probably gonna be short enough already.

Everything shown so far is from the first two levels. They also take their sweet time showcasing various interactions, so there's very little actual progress in the videos. I don't think the videos spoil much.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: kingv on March 03, 2020, 02:40:04 PM
I’m sure it feels a lot cooler playing it (like all VR games) but that video didn’t do much for me.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 03, 2020, 03:21:20 PM
The game isn't super short.
I'm expecting it to be about 8-9 hours, i guess that isn't super short, just short for a regular game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 04, 2020, 12:24:41 AM
It's kind of mind blowing that the two most expensive VR games coming out this year are floaty hands games and one of them has fucking teleporting as its main traversal mechanism. There are like 2 person Indie teams out of Eastern Europe putting in more effort to add IK to their games.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 04, 2020, 12:34:14 AM
Not sure if you mean Alyx but it supports smooth locomotion if you choose.

I do. Didn't realize that in the video they don't switch over until like 6 minutes in. So slightly less disappointed.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 04, 2020, 10:59:45 AM
What's wrong with floaty hands? Seeing you arms isn't that important once you're in the space, and it's still better than seeing your arms jerk about in unnatural postitions.
I think there's some people (who don't play VR often) who still wait for the magic bullet to transport DMC or whatever favorite traditional game they have, in VR, which is never happening; while defining new, specific genres, isn't going to be easy with so little return on investment and in a relatively short time span (since trad-videogames have been going at it for 40+ years), but i still believe; VR still gave me sensations trad-videogames never did.

Not that Alyx is really "a new genre".  :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 04, 2020, 09:50:28 PM
Apparently there’s a ton of research that shows floaty hands is much better for VR perception than having best-guess IK arms. The solving on fake arms is NBD.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: naff on March 04, 2020, 09:57:41 PM
fake arms are gross af. floaty hands 4 lyf
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Joe Molotov on March 05, 2020, 01:53:54 PM
When are they releasing a flatscreen version for pancake gamers? :thinking
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 06, 2020, 01:28:24 AM
When are they releasing a flatscreen version for pancake gamers? :thinking
Imagine playing Time Crisis with a gamepad. :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on March 06, 2020, 06:36:59 AM
When are they releasing a flatscreen version for pancake gamers? :thinking
Imagine playing Time Crisis with a gamepad. :doge

Hey I did that last night!

https://youtu.be/LPX8IK_orT4?t=135
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 07, 2020, 12:05:00 AM
Apparently there’s a ton of research that shows floaty hands is much better for VR perception than having best-guess IK arms. The solving on fake arms is NBD.

I'd be interested in reading this if you have a link (or I guess I'll just track it down myself).

Floaty hands just feels like a step backwards.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: TVC15 on March 07, 2020, 03:03:56 AM
In short, bad arms are worse than no arms, and IK arms and shoulders are still wrong too often unless you’re willing to put a lot of effort into it (and the benefit isn’t worth the effort for most games, imo). Your sense of proprioception still knows where your real elbows are, and this is believed to be one of those things that breaks immersion.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 07, 2020, 07:06:37 AM
On one hand I want to invest in VR.

On the other I fear that if I do I get so immersed that I will end up spending more time in VR than I do in the real world.  :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 07, 2020, 07:38:27 AM
theres nothing immersive enough in vr to make you want to do that quite yet, though there are some real fun games
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 20, 2020, 07:46:01 PM
preload is up

(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/110851346340532224/690707289480364043/unknown.png)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 20, 2020, 08:32:25 PM
Even the craziest of fans of the last game I worked on spent less than 500 hours playing it last year.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 21, 2020, 06:55:07 AM
Got my Rift S this week and took it for a spin yesterday.
Not sure what internet people are smoking when they say the CV1 is better.
It is much improved over the CV1 my brother got back in the day in pretty much every way.

All ready for Half Life Alyx*  :rejoice

spoiler (click to show/hide)
if the kung flu doesn't kill me
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on March 21, 2020, 10:04:08 AM
I asked my pc gamer cousin if he had a VR headset for HL Alyx, he asked whats Alyx?

-_-

Then I asked him if he played Portal 2, he said noo thats not for me I dont like games with portals

I was like wtf? Dude one of the best games ever made. He's like nah never gonna touch it man dont like puzzel games

Told him he's closed minded and he said ey man watch it dont call me close minded  :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 23, 2020, 11:04:09 AM
nvidia dropped a new driver for HLA today so make sure to update
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on March 23, 2020, 01:34:30 PM
Man it looks amazing,,watching a stream right now

https://www.twitch.tv/vaselinefairy
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on March 23, 2020, 01:54:08 PM
https://youtu.be/FqnEmmDeGHc

mashallah lads

VG247 5/5
IGN 10
UploadVR 5/5
VGC 5/5
PC Gamer 92
EDGE 9
USGamer 4.5/5
Gamespot 9
Destructoid 9
Game Informer 9
Eurogamer 'Recommended'
PCGamesN 9

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Coffee Dog on March 23, 2020, 02:53:58 PM
I've watched three hours of this and it looks more like yet another puzzle/horror VR game that happens to be set in the Half Life universe rather than an attempt to adapt the gameplay of Half Life to VR.

All combat encounters have to assume that the player can't move and shoot at the same time. You have two guns (with room for one more) that you upgrade so far rather than carrying multiple (because its a horror game and not an FPS). By this time in either Half Life you had several guns and already went through multiple combat setpieces.

If you're already into what VR games offer this looks like the one with the highest production values easily, but what's the selling point for someone who actually likes the Half Life games for how they play? All the "2006 wii remote flashback" motion control submarine doors?  :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: demi on March 23, 2020, 02:54:30 PM
Saw the ending, saved myself a click

spoiler (click to show/hide)
HL3 confirmed actually maybe now?
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 23, 2020, 03:02:05 PM
venturebeat gave it an 8 cause coronavirus made the world too scary for them to have as much fun with the game :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Coffee Dog on March 23, 2020, 03:10:11 PM
Saw the ending, saved myself a click

spoiler (click to show/hide)
HL3 confirmed actually maybe now?
[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Blatantly, and its tacky as fuck tbh  :yuck
[close]

Also

spoiler (click to show/hide)
introducing asspull timeline changes to the plot to get around Laidlaw's outline is pretty funny
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Coffee Dog on March 23, 2020, 07:13:50 PM
I'm seeing people play through the latter half of the game, (combat mechanics spoilers I guess?)
spoiler (click to show/hide)
and it does look like there's more combat with non zombie enemies (though it seems careful never to throw more than 1-2 people with guns at you at a time which isnt great imo). in an FPS without jumping and sprinting, the entire thing has this start/stop vibe, where you just teleport away to a safe distance and start firing down a hallway or behind an object as you wait for the enemies to approach you.
[close]

I like that they made the attempt, the intro is probably a slow build before they start throwing you into firefights
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Eel O'Brian on March 23, 2020, 08:56:36 PM
Smooth turning doesn't work, fuck this shit until they fix it.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 23, 2020, 09:23:01 PM
Did an hour. I like it. Haven't gotten to combat yet.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: chronovore on March 23, 2020, 10:52:28 PM
Did an hour. I like it. Haven't gotten to combat yet.

DID YOU LIKE IT, Mr. Shogun of Harlem?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 24, 2020, 06:21:21 PM
Do you think it's even worth setting it up as a seated experience? I'm kind of cramped due to curfew circumstances RN, i don't know if i should just wait (and maybe even get it on sale at this point), or set up the Oculus and get the game anyway.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 24, 2020, 06:29:54 PM
Smooth turning doesn't work, fuck this shit until they fix it.

I'm curious, what does it do? Nothing?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on March 24, 2020, 08:13:06 PM
https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/fo3q2h/the_level_of_detail_in_this_game_is_insane_you/

feeling real regrets over selling my vr, despite having no room for it atm. 
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Eel O'Brian on March 25, 2020, 07:53:42 AM
Smooth turning doesn't work, fuck this shit until they fix it.

I'm curious, what does it do? Nothing?
They had the option to turn off snap turning, but turning it off did nothing and just stayed as snap turning. They fixed it yesterday, and added turning speed. Snap turning in VR games is too jarring for me and throws me off too much when aiming and moving, makes me feel like a drunk lurching around.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on March 25, 2020, 12:17:02 PM
https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/fo3q2h/the_level_of_detail_in_this_game_is_insane_you/

feeling real regrets over selling my vr, despite having no room for it atm. 

:whew
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on March 25, 2020, 02:37:37 PM
https://twitter.com/Falafelkid/status/1242570398291701761
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 25, 2020, 05:45:52 PM
Holy fuck, this game is intense.

Played the first 95 minutes.
Took some time to get used to the controls, continuous movement is a bit too much for me so I'm blinking and snapping.

At the end I was like at the opposite side of my room.

There's zombies in my living room

send halp  :pika
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 25, 2020, 06:54:07 PM
i'm doing shift movement, seems good so far. need to fiddle with my space a little more to get a better play area bit yeah the game is intense. i'm taking my time cause there's so much shit to check out.

was also sweaty af after about 90 mins :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 25, 2020, 07:38:36 PM
I'm shocked by just how much you can do in this virtual space.
I crouched and very carefully managed to see beyond a ceiling beam that obstructed my view so I could shoot some aliens.
Leaning over things or just carefully positioning yourself so you can pick off enemies from a distance.
There's a strategic element going on in terms of movement and where you put yourself in the world.

Plus there's all the interaction with the weird Combine gizmo's and machines, which really feel like they don't belong on Earth and have all these obscure interfaces to figure out.

I don't think anything as immersive as this exists anywhere else in gaming.  :thinking
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 25, 2020, 09:33:32 PM
This feels like a game from the future. Chapter 6. No spoilers. Holy shit!!!
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Trent Dole on March 26, 2020, 02:36:48 AM
https://twitter.com/AverageJoeSFM/status/1242987667320643584
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 26, 2020, 04:33:24 AM
Chapter 5's environment is like one of my favorites of all time, so fuckin rad
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 26, 2020, 11:01:26 AM
Oh my god the chapter called JEFF

spoiler (click to show/hide)
You trap him inside the closet
spoiler (click to show/hide)
but the thing you need to proceed is inside the closet
[close]
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Tasty on March 26, 2020, 11:52:40 AM
https://twitter.com/AverageJoeSFM/status/1242987667320643584

WebM :klob
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 26, 2020, 05:33:17 PM
This game does not play around. Holy shit.

Me after playing Half Life Alyx finding myself on the other end of my living room

(https://media0.giphy.com/media/6uGhT1O4sxpi8/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47395ec86633a31a40a7079924f62f1f32d1602e62&rid=giphy.gif)
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 26, 2020, 10:55:52 PM
Is that the:

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Guy who hears you cough or whatever?
[close]

My wife played this game 2 months ago and spoiled most of it for me but she was just too excited by it and I didn't want to tell her not to talk about it lol

Yeah that's the one. There's more shit to it too, omgggg
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 27, 2020, 01:08:01 AM
So how you guys liking the orb puzzle? Cause it seems like no one likes it.

I'm shocked by just how much you can do in this virtual space.
I crouched and very carefully managed to see beyond a ceiling beam that obstructed my view so I could shoot some aliens.
Leaning over things or just carefully positioning yourself so you can pick off enemies from a distance.
There's a strategic element going on in terms of movement and where you put yourself in the world.

Plus there's all the interaction with the weird Combine gizmo's and machines, which really feel like they don't belong on Earth and have all these obscure interfaces to figure out.

I don't think anything as immersive as this exists anywhere else in gaming.  :thinking

The physics stuff there's probably not much else like it, but all the leaning and looking around stuff is one of the things that people like about most VR FPS compared to "flat" games.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 27, 2020, 09:50:58 AM
orb is cool, definitely requires two hands and the ability to look around it though. i know valve says the game can be played sitting and one handed and i guess that's technically true but that would be a real shitty experience. i don't even know how some of the moving of objects would work one handed.

jeff from GB was playing it sitting and that looked pretty wack.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 27, 2020, 07:07:26 PM
every single headcrab still scares the shit out of me. i may have a heart attack by the end of this game :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 27, 2020, 08:09:23 PM
I do about 1.5 hour play sessions.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Had to venture into the dark to finally get to the train. That shit was scary, this is a legit horror game at times.
[close]

The game looks absolutely disgusting at times on purpose obviously but I'm sorta surprised how much they doubled down on the nasty zombie, dead bodies, garbage etc. everywhere.
Sometimes you peak through a hallway and you're like shit, I have to actually pass through these sewers with nothing but a flashlight to shoot aliens so they vomit body parts all over me.  :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 29, 2020, 07:39:08 AM
I played the whole shaboodle (14 hours?) standing up. I can’t see enjoying this seated in any way, shape, or form. Was super lucky to play it in a big room with a Vive so I’d get turned around all the time. It was great.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 29, 2020, 08:14:29 AM
I saw the Digital Foundry video about it running on min spec.
8400 with a 1060 is also what i play on, so it should run it, even if barely.  :doge
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 29, 2020, 09:36:23 AM
I saw the Digital Foundry video about it running on min spec.
8400 with a 1060 is also what i play on, so it should run it, even if barely.  :doge
It's not very demanding visually, the most tricky part are the physics I think. Most environments and scenes are pretty small and because of the VR gameplay the number of enemies on screen at once is fairly limited too.
There a few pretty parts but graphic fidelity reminds me of Wolfenstein The New Order although without the texture streaming glitches and less stylized.
A 1060 should get you a long way especially if it's not a vanilla one but a souped up model.

Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on March 29, 2020, 08:48:29 PM
I played mine on an uh....i7 from 5 years ago, and a 2060 super. Super smooth at 90hz on the original Vive, which doesn’t have the best resolution though.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 29, 2020, 11:37:53 PM
I saw the Digital Foundry video about it running on min spec.
8400 with a 1060 is also what i play on, so it should run it, even if barely.  :doge
It's not very demanding visually, the most tricky part are the physics I think. Most environments and scenes are pretty small and because of the VR gameplay the number of enemies on screen at once is fairly limited too.
There a few pretty parts but graphic fidelity reminds me of Wolfenstein The New Order although without the texture streaming glitches and less stylized.
A 1060 should get you a long way especially if it's not a vanilla one but a souped up model.
The digital foundry video seems to show that GPU isn't the bottleneck, but CPU is.
They tried pushing the game to high and then back to low, and very little changed (aside from volumetric lighting) in terms of performance gain.
Yet what really tanked the framerate, seemed to be the holographic elements and the more "cutscene-like" moments.
They say it's still mostly playable, just not a super smooth experience.

I certainly am not in the position to upgrade my PC now, let alone the CPU/MoBo, so it's a non-issue anyway, for me.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 30, 2020, 09:11:34 AM
Yeah the GPU needed isn't much, anything 6gb will do which is any 10 series or newer card. But even for the CPU a first gen ryzen or three year old i5 will run the game pretty well. The game seems pretty good at optimizing to make the framerate as high as possible, which is definitely smart if you don't want people getting sick, so I haven't manually fiddled with the graphics settings.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Transhuman on March 30, 2020, 12:21:23 PM
Based on Alyx what do you think the ETA is on a must-play VR multiplayer FPS?

Because i'm only going to buy one of these rigs if I can get hundreds of hours out of it.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Transhuman on March 30, 2020, 12:59:29 PM
Have to say, the fast travel movement in Alyx does not look fun at all. Maybe it feels different when you're actually playing it though. 6 years seems about right considering the distance of Doom to Halo was 8 years.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 30, 2020, 01:35:19 PM
Based on Alyx what do you think the ETA is on a must-play VR multiplayer FPS?

Because i'm only going to buy one of these rigs if I can get hundreds of hours out of it.

There were people who put in 500+ hours of Firewall Zero Hour last year, so for some people it is already here. That game certainly showed the potential but was held back in a lot of ways by the hardware and the dev team.

The thing is, despite its "success" it was really well below what anyone would consider a success for a non VR game, so it really comes down to a company like Valve of Facebook deciding to throw away a lot of money on something that will have a fraction of the players of your average Battle Royale these days.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on March 30, 2020, 01:36:10 PM
Have to say, the fast travel movement in Alyx does not look fun at all. Maybe it feels different when you're actually playing it though. 6 years seems about right considering the distance of Doom to Halo was 8 years.
You have 3 options, blink, shift and just walking with the stick.
If you can handle the third the option is there but it is very intense.

Blink and Shift are nice and comfy
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on March 30, 2020, 01:47:11 PM
Based on Alyx what do you think the ETA is on a must-play VR multiplayer FPS?

Because i'm only going to buy one of these rigs if I can get hundreds of hours out of it.
Like 100's of hours for one game? Maybe 6 or more years.

Pavlov is a good multiplayer VR game and VRChat is a strong chatroom... both have users that play for 100's of hours. But casuals/normal human beings will need expansive worlds with complex systems and a strong MMO-like infrastructure... I don't see that happening until the next-gen of VR, granted we haven't seen how next-gen GPUs/CPUs will allow devs to keep stronger hardware in mind when developing these titles.

Alyx is probably the first real AAA single-player game that you would pick up off the shelf at a retail store, multiplayer infrastructure and interactivity is a ways out in terms of R&D because it brings in a host of new problems to tackle.
For a multiplayer FPS?  ???
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Transhuman on March 30, 2020, 02:13:27 PM
I think he means to get hundreds of hours of gameplay out of it
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on March 30, 2020, 02:30:42 PM
tell that to cs players :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on March 30, 2020, 06:48:11 PM
We shipped with basically 2001 era gameplay but in VR and a 2001 era DLC plan (that was eventually pivoted) and that was enough to get people who played for hundreds of hours and some people who are still playing 2 years down the road.

You know what we didn't have? Marketing of any kind.

Maybe Medal of Honor from Respawn has multiplayer and actual marketing and people jump in.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Mr Gilhaney on March 30, 2020, 07:18:07 PM
https://twitter.com/ProbablyTTMR/status/1244496654142541824
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on April 09, 2020, 07:27:30 PM
still plugging away very slowly. finally got to the point where i can play for a multi-hour session with zero ill effects, even minor. also just found out the lightning dog can take over a corpse.

so that was totally cool and not a problem at all.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Steve Contra on April 10, 2020, 03:40:51 PM
Tvc brought over his gaming laptop let me play this today. Can’t say the last time a game impressed me as much.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: stufte on April 15, 2020, 07:26:17 PM
Just finished it. It was a masterpiece.  I've never spent this much time in VR with any game or app ever. It's really the best VR experience I've ever had and I'm so excited to see what else Valve does.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: BikeJesus on April 16, 2020, 02:33:12 AM
I'm about 10 hours in, just finished the jeff chapter, and my only real complaint is that Valve doesn't trust the player enough to allow them to manually turn the flashlight on and off. It really bothers me.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 20, 2020, 03:35:00 PM
So i managed to set the Rift back up (even managed a decent space, i can spin 360° with my arms extended out) and tried a couple of hours of this.
Never been in a VR space for this long, tbh, but it's quite incredible how realistic it looks (despite the stylized graphics), sometimes a simple dark corridor is so fucking creepy.
Also, just fighting a single, slow walking head-crab zombie turned into panic mode when another one jumped out from the side, and i had to remember how to actually reload the gun.  :lol
Props to them to manage to cause panic in me with simply 2 slow as shit enemies.

The art style of Half Life is also possibly one of my favorites in general (i'm talking about the look of the city and its palette, so i'm happy this ended up being the subject of the VR flagship title.
some of those massive Combine structures are...  :whoo
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 21, 2020, 11:08:53 PM
Just got the torch to put on the gloves, and the black head-crabs popped out.

We Alien now.  :whew

In fact, They need to do a proper Alien game (not a cobbled together mod, like for Isolation) with this level of polish.
This is how i want to die, hunting face huggers through the Nostromo with a flamethrower, and then getting eaten by a Xenomorph.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Sho Nuff on April 22, 2020, 01:44:06 AM
Just remember whenever you're talking on the radio, you're safe. They're not going to throw enemies at you during a radio conversation.

Probably.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on April 22, 2020, 07:42:24 PM
Just got to chapter 4. I really like it, but certain things are holding it back from top-tier VR. Mostly that I still have control issues that I have with every fucking vr game on the planet where things don't always work just right and considering this game can be fucking hard, having shit happen mid-battle is annoying here and there. I think Astrobot & Beat Saber are my favorite VR games because it's pretty hard to fuck up their controls.

Like on the turn stick, sometimes it registers right/left as down instead and I take a step back instead of turning. Also the walk stick movement sometimes jumps me way further than I want and I end up in weird places in combat. I also don't understand why backstep isn't down on the left controller since up is forward?? The backpack thing doesn't register about 1 in 10 times or a little more often where I drop the ammo/energy and it falls to the floor. Also some stuff is really counter-intuitive like I was trying to stab myself with a needle to get life and I didn't understand you have to push a button first and I'm like why isn't this working what am I doing wrong. Like I guess they didn't want people accidentally stabbing themselves and wasting an injector but it's pretty hard to do that.

In Ch.3 I ran out of ammo in the dark flashlight bits. This was VERY DIFFICULT and required a bunch of reloads to make every fucking shot count. The part with where you get the flashlight and come back and there's a million headcrabs and they will FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH if you don't kill every one of them and there's so little ammo I ran out of ammo a couple of times. Made me wish I could at least have a melee weapon to conserve ammo and whack down headcrabs. Aiming isn't the easiest in VR and when ammo is ridiculously scarce it's tough. I feel like there's less ammo in this games so far than RE2R/RE3R.

Also I didn't realize you were supposed to be scrounging everywhere to stock up on ammo. Breaking every box, looking in every nook & cranny. So I probably missed some before the flashlight. After that point I break EVERY BOX because ammo is life.

That being said, right after that million headcrab no ammo left part the game gives you a ton of ammo and I've been very conservative with it, so in ch.4 I have about 80 hg bullets and 6-8 shotgun shells.

I fucking hate reloading in this game. I get why they do it for gaming balance, but considering enemies take like a full clip, I run into a lot of times where I run out of my clip with HG and shit is jumping at me and I don't have time to do the slow ass reload so I switch to shotgun and waste a bullet finishing the enemy off because it's quick. Reaching back, hoping it grabs the ammo, hoping I get the clip in and hit the reload button is a lot of effort which doesn't work in quick combat. Works better against combine when you can hide behind shit and reload slowly.

I like the puzzles but the controls again are a bit finnicky with some of them. The spinning orb one never seems to spin right, it's hard moving it exactly how I want it. The others are fine. Have about 32 resin, not sure what I want to upgrade. I think I'm saving up for laser sight on the HG just so I miss less shots and conserve ammo.

The combine combat is good and makes me wish Namco would do a Time Crisis VR. There's something about hiding behind actual objects and popping out for shots that's really satisfying in VR.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on April 22, 2020, 07:48:51 PM
eventually  the shotgun gets an autoloader thing and the handgun has a double clip thing so that helps a lot. sorry to hear you are having ammo problems though. i've always been able to find some on desks or counters before each encounter. the game does encourage opening every drawer and looking on and around cabinets/lockers/boxes, but i did notice that only the wooden boxes seem to have ammo. the cardboard ones don't.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on April 22, 2020, 08:30:14 PM
Most enemies can be taken down by about 3 well placed handgun shots or 1 shotgun blast.
Always aim for the heads when shooting at zombies. (you get a scope thingy later that makes this easier).

Yes, search your environment for ammo and resin for weapon upgrades. Some stuff his hidden in environmental puzzles as well.
Remember, you can pick up bigger items like oil drums with 2 hands.  ;)

With regards to the controls, assuming you are using the Oculus make sure to check your battery levels.
There's something funny going with your batteries nearly running out but the warning doesn't appear until they're pretty much fully drained.
Also make sure there are no objects that can confuse your camera's. I noticed you had quite a bit of equipment on the floor in your photo.
I'm no expert by any means but I imagine the tracking signals can get distorted pretty easily. I didn't encounter any serious issues with tracking myself.
Also make sure to check your height setting in the Steam VR setup.

Finally make sure you set USB power management off also. I had to keep reconnecting the cables after every reboot. Turns out Windows automatically disabled the USB 3.0 ports to save power.  :doge
I imagine it may effect some other stuff as well. If your GPU has a VirtualLink USB-C Port get a dongle and use that to hook up the Oculus instead.
I've read reports that the port has been added specifically to improve VR compatibility on RTX cards as not every motherboard offers the same results.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on April 22, 2020, 08:56:22 PM
I'm using Valve Index with room scale. I'm assuming it's cause I'm short (I have some issues with the index controllers too which I assume is because my hands are smaller) or because my room is tiny and baarely the min requirements.

For enemies I always do headshots and this is what they take with hg so far:

-Grabby tongue things - 3-4 HG shots
-Headcrabs - 3...but sometimes 4-5 HG shots (I thought they were 3 but sometimes I get 3 good shots and they're still alive wtff)
-Zombies with headcrabs - probably 5-6 HG shots to the head and then maybe another 1 to the headcrab if it's still alive
-armored headcrabs - 1 to the weakpoint
-zombies with armored headcrabs - is there a trick to them other than shoot them in the body for like 6-8 shots?
-combine with flame pack - 1 shot to the flame canister
-combine normal - I counted each bullet with HG headshot and it was 9 or 10 HG shots (full clip) to take one down

Now shotgun 1 hit kills everything, but generally I conserve my shotgun shells for emergencies.


That tip on getting the double clip size for HG is actually pretty smart so don't have to reload as much mid-combat. Because of the way ammo clips work, sometimes you got like 2/10 shots going into combat but you don't want to throw away those 2 bullets and reload beforehand  :'(
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on April 22, 2020, 09:08:23 PM
i've read some places that there's an ai director like system that gives you more ammo for weapons you use more often. not sure if it's true or not but i started getting more shotgun ammo when i started abusing the shotgun so maybe there's some truth to it.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 23, 2020, 07:05:12 AM
I'm still on Ch.3 (didn't really have time to play more, since the last post) but personally i've never had any real problem with the controls, in fact, playing a bit of SUPERHOT VR, it made me appreciate some of the choices in Alyx more.
Also i like the slow shooting style of game (like Alyx) to the fast ones like RoboRecall or Sairento, i don't think fast moving works well in VR.

One thing i definitely agree with though, is the need for a simple melee weapon, or the ability to use objects as ones.
I never ran out of bullets completely (though i explore A LOT) but i'm definitely always on the brink, like a Resident Evil game, which is a good thing, but also, it's dumb that you have a head crab on the floor in need of a mercy kill, and you have to waste a bullet, when you have a thousand bricks laying around.

FWIW, i think there is a mod for rudimentary melee+crowbar, if you're interested.

EDIT: I'll add, if Valve thought they didn't have a good enough melee system (which i can understand, the Katanas in Sairento are SHIT to use) they could've just implemented some form of super weak, short range, infinite "gun", say, a blow torch or laser cutter of some kind, working on a cool down.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 23, 2020, 07:12:01 AM
Oh this made me think of how well a VR DeadSpace (1) would work.

Dark tight corridors.
Slow movement.
Slow fine aiming required (for limb cutting etc).
Many peculiar weapons, all based on shooting.
Physical, in-world HUD already implemented.
Locating enemies through 3d sound (in vents for example)
Horror game.
Massive structures.
Possibly zero-G movement, like in Lone Echo.

 :lawd
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 23, 2020, 09:23:36 PM
Into Chapter 4 now.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Yeah that dark explosive corridor was sphincter tightening, but i also loved the Combine shootout immediately after, probably one of the most fun parts so far, popping out of cover to shoot them in the head/canister is so satisfying, on a visceral level.
And the train derail :leon
Can't find the blue keycard though, i'm probably missing something, but i'm stuck right after you see the big "vault" in the sky (in that area with the elevator).
[close]

Any good, slow, tac. shooter on VR? I've seen stuff like Pavlov thrown around, but that's competitive and fast as shit.
I want more of a plan-your-moves&pick-your-shots kind of feel.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on April 23, 2020, 09:57:35 PM
if its the part i'm thinking of
spoiler (click to show/hide)
take the elevator up and its in one of the desks
[close]

also i'd take a look at onward. that's a tactical military sim style game that's getting good reviews
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 25, 2020, 03:48:32 PM
Yeah, it was in a desk's drawer.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Anyway, moved on a ton, and did the whole part with the electric teleporting headcrabs ( that boss fight when it enters the body  :anhuld ) and am currently finishing up the Northern Star Hotel.
The big armored Combine boys... :holeup
[close]

I found the SMG, but if i have to move a critique, looking at the weapons list for the game, i think this is going to be it, and i'm finding the arsenal extremely basic and not very creative at all.
Don't get me wrong, all the guns feel great to use and they're so fun to look at as they animate, but as far as function goes, they really did the bare minimum.
A handgun, a shotgun, a machine gun and a grenade (2, but both working the same)?

Here's some random ideas that'd work in VR, and are even more or less standard in other games, always keeping with their "one handed gun" policy:

Crossbow (reloading it would be fun) with sticky bolts that have various functions.
Energy weapon with projectiles that bounce off of walls.
Gun that places trip wires (just shoot one end and then the other to the opposite wall, and have enemies walk into it).
Bolas gun to shoot at enemies' feet.
Freezing/stasis grenades.
Blackhole/implosion grenades that sucks in objects and enemies (just to group them together, no damage).
Throwable lures/holographic decoys.
Deployable or portable shields (1 time use, on cool down, with health bar, whatever)

I mean this is just off the top of my head as i'm writing, i'm sure they could come up with more.

I'm still holding out hope that, by the end, i do get the proper Gravity Gun tho.  :'(
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on April 26, 2020, 09:48:52 AM
Played some more.
Chapter 4 and chapter 5 are fantastic. I also love the meta commentary the devs put into the game.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
"The electric dog thing went into a guy"
"That sounds crazy!" "
It was! You should've seen it!"
[close]

I just keep getting amazed by how well they managed to execute this.
My expectation was that Half Life Alyx would sorta set the stage and a possible sequel would deliver the real fleshed out experience but this game delivers both in one package once you get through the first 3 chapters.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on April 26, 2020, 09:07:43 PM
Got to Chapter 5? Northern Star and a bit in on that. Good stuff.

Spent all my resin on the Grenade Launcher thinking it would let me store grenades in my backpack. Lol, no. But been carrying 1 in my arm, 1 in my off-hand and one on my shotgun and shotgun grenading everything has been helpful enough to be worth the 40 resin. If I manage to get another 20 or so I'll get the 2nd ammo clip for the pistol next though I'm not finding much of a use for the pistol anymore other than flying machines & head crabs on their own.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on April 30, 2020, 12:00:51 AM
Finished Chapter 7 (JEFF).
Yeah, butt clenching for sure, it's what i expected in terms of mechanics, and it works great, although all the hype was a bit over blown.
Still it's the kind of creative design variety you had in HL2, this game was starting to miss a bit, loved it.
It's an idea seen in many other horror games tbh, but in VR it's a whole other beast.  :-X
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 02, 2020, 08:32:53 PM
Finished.
Needed a bigger bang in the end, but the final set pieces in the last chapter were at least interesting.
Also that post credit scene was a nice tease, i can't imagine them making HL3 NOT in VR, at this point.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 03, 2020, 12:47:21 AM
Got to chapter 6 Arms Race.

That part with the infinite spawning spidercrabs was EVIL
SMG is pretty good, nice to be able to take out shield guys without grenades

I'm getting really tired of these orb laser puzzles. Like the orb thing was fine before the lasers were moving, then it was ok with the moving lasers. But adding 2nd and 3rd points and you have to start all over and the touch controls for this are the only controls in the game that are a bit finnicky and you need to be extremely precise. Bleh. It's not fun spending 5 mins retrying a dumb orb puzzle over and over.

Also right at the end of ch.5 there were some odd trip mines where I'd be an entire hallway away and it would still kill me. On that last one behind the door I had to open the door slightly more so I could back into the kitchen of the previous room and shoot it from there. Even from the end of the hallway I'd instant die. Just seemed kinda iffy design.

Otherwise real good.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on May 03, 2020, 06:24:24 AM
Got to chapter 6 Arms Race.

That part with the infinite spawning spidercrabs was EVIL
SMG is pretty good, nice to be able to take out shield guys without grenades

I'm getting really tired of these orb laser puzzles. Like the orb thing was fine before the lasers were moving, then it was ok with the moving lasers. But adding 2nd and 3rd points and you have to start all over and the touch controls for this are the only controls in the game that are a bit finnicky and you need to be extremely precise. Bleh. It's not fun spending 5 mins retrying a dumb orb puzzle over and over.

Also right at the end of ch.5 there were some odd trip mines where I'd be an entire hallway away and it would still kill me. On that last one behind the door I had to open the door slightly more so I could back into the kitchen of the previous room and shoot it from there. Even from the end of the hallway I'd instant die. Just seemed kinda iffy design.

Otherwise real good.
laser wires
Open the door, throw grenade, close the door  8)
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 08, 2020, 03:34:17 AM
Got to ch.8. Still pretty good. I kinda wish you didn't die in like 2 seconds from combine gunfire, I've had a decent amount of deaths in this game and the loading could be quicker. The Jeff part was sorta clever, sorta annoying trial & error-ish a bit. Makes me wish the game had more NPCs. Holding your breath motion is a bit weird since you have to hold your hand out a bit since the headset sticks out.

Basically my feel on this is it's great, and it really is Half-Life episode 3, but it's also not quite as good as the old Half-life games and you can tell it's mostly a different team that's just not quite there in creative gameplay design skills.

The writing, VA and art are excellent and spot on though, you can tell those are the same staff.

Not sure if there'll be any replay value once I finish it. But length is definitely quality, especially for a VR game. Around 8 hours-ish now, so guessing it'll be about 10 hours or a bit more. Very solid.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 08, 2020, 06:25:19 AM
I was also in the "this is fantastic but not as creative" camp, until i tried some other VR games, where you don't just stand still.
You know, stuff like Saint&Sinners, Boneworks and such.
Now i have new found respect for Alyx, this thing really is a watershed moment in terms of polish and comfort levels that should be at the bare minimum, when you want to do a VR game with a campaign.
Even simple stuff like reloading or exploring a room, is just so much cleaner and responsive in Alyx, i really gave it for granted.

Then you have games like the aforementioned ones, where your head bobs up and down for no reason, where the inventory is some over-complicated list of motions, where your (pointless) virtual arms flips around, where they couldn't be bothered to design around not having crouch & jump, and so on and so forth.

I do hope they'll try to be a bit more daring in an hypothetical HL3vr, but i do appreciate many of the "safe" choices they made more, after playing some games who don't care as much.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 09, 2020, 12:31:05 AM
Yeah, in terms of movement/controls it's really good. Once you've played a bunch you can move around and interact and shoot like second nature. The art design/graphics are probably the best visuals in VR. Everything has a clean detailed look to it.

The laser orb puzzles are kinda lame though.

Actually got stuck for the first time in the game after the ant-lions. Need to look up how to get out of this room. There's a forcefield and a wall that's cracked and you can see into a kitchen behind the wall, but I can't see anything to shoot/interact with there.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 09, 2020, 01:51:50 AM
Yeah, in terms of movement/controls it's really good. Once you've played a bunch you can move around and interact and shoot like second nature. The art design/graphics are probably the best visuals in VR. Everything has a clean detailed look to it.

The laser orb puzzles are kinda lame though.

Actually got stuck for the first time in the game after the ant-lions. Need to look up how to get out of this room. There's a forcefield and a wall that's cracked and you can see into a kitchen behind the wall, but I can't see anything to shoot/interact with there.
I know the room you mean, it took me a second too.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
There should be cables in the walls but they're hard to see and they go up the ceiling.
[close]
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: bluemax on May 09, 2020, 02:40:40 AM
Quote
Almost a million new people registered with SteamVR, Valve's storefront for VR games, in April. To put that in context, the 950,000 people who signed up in April bring the all-time total to around 2.7 million, meaning that a third of all SteamVR users registered in the past month alone.

There's another piece of context that's important, of course, which is that 2.7 million isn't actually a whole lot of users for an entire market segment served by competing hardware offerings from some of the world's biggest gaming companies. It is still somewhere in the region of 2% of Steam's overall user base, suggesting that the uptake of VR headsets by PC gamers is actually somewhat lower, proportionally, than the uptake by PS4 gamers.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-07-vr-could-seize-its-moment-if-the-big-players-would-cooperate-opinion

Of course this article is kind of funny given that Vader Immortal and Saints and Sinners both got announced for PSVR this week. Saints and Sinners actually got released on PSVR, not just announced.

For general comparison Sony announced 5 million PSVRs sold. Which would put it at about 4.5% attach rate to PS4s.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 11, 2020, 01:15:32 AM
Got to ch.10, man the big construction yard battle at the end of ch.9 was tough. Good stuff though. Yeah, now that I'm pretty used to Alyx, the controls (for a 1st person VR game), the interactivity and visuals are just better than everything else out there. It's fun opening all the drawers everywhere looking for loot. Would like to see more VR games have this kind of physics/interactivity with the environment, shouldn't be that hard to have objects be grabbable and drawers able to open. Been doing that in non-VR 1st person games for decades.

But yeah it's also a bit odd how the texture quality is so much better here than like every other VR game, all while running smooth. Not sure if it's because Half-life uses a slightly shaded art style.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 11, 2020, 01:42:41 AM
The shaded art style is part of it for sure, but i think developing the Source 2 with VR in mind (my assumption, but c'mon) is also a large part of the advantage.
Hopefully they'll make that engine open to the public/modding, like Source 1 was.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 11, 2020, 01:59:14 AM
Yeah, I saw Alyx supports community mods but not officially yet.

A mod that removes the laser orb puzzles would be great  ;)
It definitely fucks with the pacing when you get to one if you get stuck on it for a bunch of attempts when the progression just stops while you keep trying the dumb orb. Still doing them all because uh, ammo is important.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Nintex on May 11, 2020, 06:49:59 PM
The orb puzzles are easier when you move the orb and not the laser
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 11, 2020, 08:55:11 PM
The orb puzzles are easier when you move the orb and not the laser
This is true, and also remember to keep the laser aimed very straight to the sphere's core.
I personally found the mine defusing worse, just because things low to the ground can create problems with tracking, for me.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 11, 2020, 09:42:22 PM
Yeah, I thought the mine defuse ones were jokingly easy compared to all other puzzles but with tracking issues I can see that being a problem.

The orb puzzles are easier when you move the orb and not the laser

Except moving the orb is very finnicky on my setup. Spins around at random speeds and not necessarily in the direction I want when I try to rotate it. Only part of the controls that consistently is iffy.

At least if you let go of the dumb blue laser it becomes invincible. I learned to just speedrun those like I'm playing super meat boy and just try to rotate the orb to line up a straight shot or near straight shot and then move the laser in one go quick then rotate and do it again.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 12, 2020, 01:10:46 AM
Beat it.

Also realized I have been rotating the orb to move on the laser orb puzzles  :lol

That was really good. Some of the end combat situations were pretty tough at first, but doable. Definitely enjoyed and appreciated the combat. The end bit was a little gimmicky but fun.

I thought the level design was spectacular. On the ch.10 breaking & entering, when you keep going up and circle around the same central section and seeing below where you've came from and above and then you get to the top and you can see all the way down the shaft to the start of the stage, that's just always cool design. Lot of great level design throughout. The puzzles were a fun distraction even if some were a little annoying or too frequent.

Grabbing and catching ammo/resin was always awesome. Felt great and perfect for getting loot. Last upgrade I did was finally adding laser sight to the base pistol and a fully modded pistol with triple burst on is basically as a strong as an SMG.

Story-wise the ending was cool. Very satisfied with the game. Definitely raises the bar for FPS VR games. Would like to see Valve do another AAA VR campaign like this.


Actually the one thing that felt off in VR was like the final

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Grenade launcher gun
[close]
and a few other handles spots. VR haptics need some better feedback to when you're holding a lever and moving it up and down. If you're not looking at it, it just feels weird because it's floaty with no weight. Not sure what the VR solution to that is but there has to be some way of doing that better.

Also I never realized until the last bunch of battles that you can reload the shotgun after putting the bullets in by just flipping it up  :o That would've been pretty helpful lol, sometimes had issues pulling it back.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 12, 2020, 02:46:03 AM


Also I never realized until the last bunch of battles that you can reload the shotgun after putting the bullets in by just flipping it up  :o That would've been pretty helpful lol, sometimes had issues pulling it back.
Wait, what alternative is there?  ???
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 12, 2020, 03:19:36 AM
You grab it with the other hand and pull it back into place.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on May 12, 2020, 10:45:47 AM
yeah learning i could flip the shotgun was a game changer and made me feel like 100x more badass :lol
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 12, 2020, 11:27:56 AM
I must've seen it in some footage maybe, because i did it just naturally as a first thing.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 15, 2020, 09:56:12 PM
Mod tools came out and people already throwing stuff up quick. I have a feeling there will be a decent mod scene in a few months, a year or two since Alyx is probably the biggest VR game after Beat Saber which already has a huge mod scene.

I started a replay of Alyx today. I wish there was a new game+ to take your upgrades in and finish upgrading all the weapons, but since Alyx is a game where you're really learning how to ride a bike and by the end you move and shoot effortlessly, replaying the game on a speedrun is pretty fun. In a couple hours already almost at the Northern Star, have tons of ammo (barely used my shotgun yet so have like 15 shells, 60 pistol) and saved up and bought the laser sight for the pistol first and about 2/3rds there for the bullet reservoir which I think you need before burst fire since you run through bullets so fast otherwise in burst.

When I got to the spot where in my first run I ran completely out of ammo, I had something like 40 pistol shots and 5 shotgun shells at that same point this time.

Also replaying the game is nice for appreciating how good the campaign is. The only parts that are kinda a pain in the ass on replay still are the parts in the dark, especially the big horde fight. Also the sneaking past explosive areas are less fun on 2nd time since the most fun stuff on replay is just moving, moving and combat.

I definitely have control issues sometimes with my Index though. A few spots both of my hands would just start drifting away into the air or vanishing. Still at like 2/5 battery on both. I fixed this last time by unplugging everything and doing a full reset, but idk what to think. Index is so expensive I hope it's not a hardware problem, especially since now during the pandemic isn't a good time to do large returns. Have everything unplugged right now and will re-plug it later.

Definitely looking forward to the single player expansion mods. The in-game interface for loading mod campaigns and mod settings for the main game is pretty good. Maybe someone will make a new game+
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 15, 2020, 10:09:17 PM
Actually, I wonder. I read the problem with index controllers disappearing or floating away is often from a reflection. Well I just realized that my play area is right in front of my 50" plasma TV which turned off is reflective. Dunno what I can do about that. Throw a blanket over the TV when I play I guess?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 16, 2020, 02:13:57 AM
I was thinking about them not including some form of NG+ as weird, once you finished the campaign, the game is quite linear, so it doesn't make all that much sense to replay it (if not for the joys of shooting and being in that world, i guess).
I guess they ran out of time, but even something like the arena mod some people created, it should've been something you unlocked at the end of the game.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 16, 2020, 02:15:42 AM
Yeah, and harder difficulty levels. Game is great but not much replay value. Mods should fix that in time.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 16, 2020, 04:14:03 AM
Yeah, and harder difficulty levels. Game is great but not much replay value. Mods should fix that in time.
There's that "lethality mod" for that i think.
Probably worth a try,
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on May 16, 2020, 05:31:19 AM
So l4d3 and source2 again named in recent updates to alyx n stuff
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on May 16, 2020, 10:17:23 AM
source 2 is old af, so not that surprising. i think there's 4-5 games that use it now?
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: MMaRsu on May 16, 2020, 10:52:15 AM
i dunno arent there some rumors about a cs go 2 or source 2 using it from Shroud or was that just speculation. I know we've had these source 2 and l4d3 runors for years but still
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: nachobro on May 16, 2020, 11:00:50 AM
i saw something about csgo this morning and figured it was related to the alyx workshop stuff but didn't look into it yet. but source 2 already powers dota 2, artifact, alyx, and dota underlords so its been in use for a while.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 16, 2020, 01:52:16 PM
Yeah, I was gonna say, Source 2 is already out!

Though I do wonder if the remaining 2 VR games are Left for Dead 3 and something something. I feel like a Portal game would work really well in VR, but I don't know if there's anything more to do with the Portal concept. A co-op multiplayer VR game with VR shooting like Alyx for a Left for Dead 3 could be pretty cool. Not sure how teleport movement would work in MP? It's always seemed kinda a cheap tactic in SP FPS because you can just run instantly and dodge, which is fine in SP but I don't see how that works in MP with people teleporting around.

I think you'd actually have to make it a part of the game world. Like a multiplayer game where everyone can zero shift/control-esque teleport dash and so it doesn't look so out of place and then make some gameplay things to make up for that.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Bebpo on May 16, 2020, 01:55:21 PM
Also I was thinking about it and Source 2 Tools for VR being open now is a big deal.

Because Valve is giving everyone in the world a fully working VR engine with excellent VR controls, combat controls and environment interaction. This is something that almost every VR game struggles with and I'd imagine the majority of VR development time is trying to get this basic stuff right. With all of it already done and there for modders, they can just focus on non-VR stuff like level designs and combat encounters.

Also hopefully Valve is licensing out Source 2 to other developers. I think all VR developers could use a very competent VR engine that has the basic movement/interaction stuff implemented already. I remember Source 1 was licensed to a few devs.
Title: Re: Half Life 3 is here bois
Post by: Don Rumata on May 16, 2020, 05:28:41 PM
Yeah, i bet you we'll get some Alyx mod, in the next year or so, that'll be more fun/interesting than most VR games out, if anything because of how solid their baseline is.
Although VR is still a very small userbase, which means, a much smaller sample of modders, too.