Half Life 2 Ep 2 Mods
Julio Cesar Thap
I am having a little bit of trouble with trying to play mods on half-life. I have a non-steam version of Half-Life 1.1, and it runs counter-strike mod perfectly, but when I try to play "Crack-Life" or its campaign brother on Half-Life by clicking "Custom Game", selecting the mod on the menu, and clicking activate, then click "done", and click "new game", it comes up with the typical half-life loading screen it stays like that. The longest I have ever had it stay was for 5-10 minutes but I assume the Half-Life game cant load it. How can I make the mods work?
Also, I moved the mods into the folder by accessing their original rar state via 7-zip and double clicking on them to see their files, then moving them to the half-life folder from 7-zip by dragging and dropping. Before moving them to it, it showed a loading screen of it compressing the files. Is this how I should do it? Because the way I did it, the files seem pretty intact to me.
Mods should be in separate folders under the main Half-Life folder. Valve themselves hold all their game data under /valve, so a mod would be under a folder as well, i.e. /hunger3 for They Hunger. Bear in mind that you don't want to duplicate the mod folder underneath the target folder, i.e. /modname/modname/(files) -- it should be /modname/(files)
If you have a CD key for Half-Life, enter it into Steam and it will add HL to your account assuming you don't have it already. Install the mod as described above, then restart Steam and you should see the mod in your games list.
That being said -- Crack-Life looks particularly amateurish, so I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the idea that it was packaged wrong.
Some mods require particular versions of half-life and many require command line wizardry (in and out of game) to autoload the game into a particular gametype and map. For 99% of half-life mods I've ever played clicking new game does nothing and you need to manually load the map you wanna play.
What does the readme say?
How do I manually load a map? Do I type in commands? And the read me lists the usual instructions on how you would set up Half-Life back in the day.
Since my Half-Life version can run Counter-Strike Perfectly, I am quite sure it can run any kind of mod, due that it is v1.1.6.
There are different kinds of mods, Replacements and Full Mods, Full mods usually have their own gamedir folder, To load full mods you need to simply put their gamedir folder inside your Half-life folder and change game after you run HL .
Replacements mods will usually replace exisitng game files like Models, Particles, Textures ... etc, Some may even modify game logic (This may prevent you from joining Netgames), It's best to make a backup copy of the folder "valve" just in case before loading any replacement mod .
Full Mods won't replace anything since they usually use their own gamedir folder (and sometimes even their own exe), an easier way To load those is to run hl.exe with command line parameter -game "Mod folder name here" (Make & use a batch file to make it easier).
Also if you're using a Non-steam version of Half-Life (aka Pre-Steam CD-Retail version) it is recommanded that you redeem your CD Key on steam And get the Steam version to ensure mods will work (since most of mods were updated to work only with Steam version) .
Note that same method works for Non-Steam version but i can't gaurantee you all of the mods will work .
If it's not pirated, and you still have the CD key, you can add the key to your Steam account. Running mods is loads easier with it.
It's not like I haven't already said as much in this thread.
Both steam and pre-steam version have an option in menu for that, Pre-Steam (WON) it's "Custom game" and for Steam version it's "Change game", Just put your gamedir/mod folder inside Half-life folder and change to it when you're ingame .
Just redeem your CD Key on steam and play mod there. Gldsrc engine on steam is the way to go, they fixed most of the compatibility issues with old mods...
If you use non steam version you may have some issue with some mods that didn't work with certain versions of HL.
For example Poke646 had some issues with the latest version of the non steam HL version, but works like a charm in the steam version.
The only reason i have a non steam version, it is portable.
^ No not really, Because Half-Life 2 mods Require steam (Specifically "sourcemods" folder found in steamapps/sourcemods), Once you put HL2 Mods there Steam automatically lists them on Games List in your Library, They will still require Half-Life 2 anyways (Some mods however are Standalone and only require Source SDK Base XXXX) .
Like many games that go on to change the direction of the industry - see also MOBAs and battle royale - Counter-Strike began life as a mod for Valve's Half-Life from Minh "Gooseman" Le (pictured) and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe.
"It started out as a small mod. At the time, I had a lot of experience making those - this was my third one. The previous two mods I worked on had been pretty successful but never to the point where they became something like Counter-Strike. I was expecting more of the same level of success - a decent number of players but nothing too mind-blowing. We quickly saw the appeal after we released Beta 1.0; it was rough but we saw real strong gravitation towards it where we had a lot of players. At that point, we felt we were onto something big, which motivated us to make the subsequent versions really fast and put to the pedal to the metal."
"There wasn't much convincing needed on our part. I remember they approached me when I was living in Vancouver. They flew down Robin Walker and someone else. At the time I was working at a PC games company called Barking Dog Studios [now Rockstar Vancouver] who were actually making a Counter-Strike clone called Global Operations. They brought me in because of Counter-Strike Beta 1.0 and 2.0 - they loved what we were doing. Then Valve became interested and ended up hiring Barking Dog to make Counter-Strike Beta 5.0. That was made in conjunction with Barking Dog Studios. Then shortly after Beta 5.0, I joined Valve and continued working on Beta 6.0 and 7.0, and finally the 1.0 release."
"That was probably when I realised I had secured a place in the industry. Before that, I considered myself an amateur, some indie guy. At that point, I realised I was part of the triple-A scene, so to speak. It was definitely a very exciting time for me - probably the most exciting time of my career. Those were probably the most emotionally happy."
There's much that Le took away from his time working on Counter-Strike - telling PCGamesInsider.biz that his biggest takeaway was that developers shouldn't be scared to change things in the game, even if users aren't on board straight away. He feels that Counter-Strike now is very similar to Counter-Strike then, with Valve being both scared of annoying its users as well as maybe feeling that what is there now works - changing it might just annoy users.
"It's interesting. In a way, Counter-Strike has become like the FIFA series where each iteration is really just a slight overhaul. In a way, that's how the shooter became such a popular esports game - it hasn't changed so much over the last 20 years. A player can spend five or ten years getting good at Counter-Strike knowing that their skills aren't going to be diminished in five years time."
This is a stark contrast to how many developers of esports titles tweak their work. Blizzard is a perfect example, changing the metagame on a pretty regular basis with projects like Hearthstone and Overwatch.
"Hopefully in ten years time, Overwatch will be as big and if that's the case, it just goes to show that developers should be more courageous and willing to change the meta of the game. That's something I regret with Counter-Strike; we were too shy to do that. We didn't want to piss off the fanbase. As developers, we sometimes overvalue the opinions of some vocal fans. Sometimes we'd change a particular game mechanic in Counter-Strike and it'd be met with such huge resistance but after two or three weeks, it'd die down."
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