Half-Life: Alyx Created 4 years ago2019-11-21 18:58:43 UTC by Daubster

https://youtu.be/O2W0N3uKXmo

Hype! Time for a PC upgrade.

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9K0eJEmMEw Interview with devs

Look who came to visit!

What better excuse than this, I bet we'll see a few more old timers show up.

Oh and what's this?

Hammer 2 for the Source 2 engine which you can already mess around through Dota 2 tools and/or Steam VR.

Shame that it's VR-only.

I think less than 1% of the Steam userbase has access to VR, from what I've seen, and having to fork over $300 to $1000 for a proper VR set is a bit of a problem.

What better excuse than this, I bet we'll see a few more old timers show up.

They should release games more often, then Wait, we already knew that

Welp, who wants to buy a kid? I need the money and the room.

Who wants to buy an Admer? There is no VR hardware to be found in Bosnia, I gotta get out somehow.

They should release games more often

They should totally make games more often, since they're still good at it.

what if everyone chipped in to buy their favourite resident streamsperson the cool new game and the cool new hardware so they could stream it so no-one else needed to buy it

just saying

If you buy me the game and the hardware I will finish The Core!

Jessie, Valve gives the game as a bonus to everyone who buys their headset. I think they made a very good decision making it VR only. To make it support both they would have to water out the VR experience to the point where neither way would work well. I haven't ever tried VR but it's pretty obvious a game designed from the ground up for VR is a completely different beast.

It may be prohibitively expensive for a lot of players at the moment, but that won't be the case for long. VR gear is getting cheaper with every year, only a matter of time before it becomes widely accessible.

Think of the performance jump from HL1 to HL2, that game needed an expensive machine to run properly when it just came out. I had to deal with like 10fps on my first playthrough. A couple years later most middle-of-the-road rigs would run it w/o problems though.

I'm... not sure why you were addressing me, Bruce, I didn't say anything to contradict that. I just can't pay for it.

Looks awesome, sadly I'm not interested in VR.

Yeah .. im more hyped about the editor and what people can do with it >:3 since there is everything for a SP game now, almoust 100% sure you can run it like a traditional fpp just for dev purposes but that's not official XD
lol the min requirements 12 GB RAM + GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600 good think at least its not Core i7 and a RTX card for minimal XD
Valve really thinks someone will get on this and creat a sticky type of vr experience, hmm

btw how long do you think until someone will create a non vr version mod ? XD

Jessie can you just get off your anti-VR high horse for once

btw how long do you think until someone will create a non vr version mod ? XD

My speculation is, less than 4 months after the SDK releases, if they provide one.

NGL, I'm hyped more for the tech than the game itself, ahaha.

btw how long do you think until someone will create a non vr version mod ? XD

A "flat" version of HL:A would be "boring" as you would lose all the interactions that VR grant.

Source: The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx (20 min interview).

My speculation is, less than 4 months after the SDK releases, if they provide one.

Right now, it is confirmed that we'll have Hammer 2 for HL:A. As for a "standard source code" à la GoldSrc/Source (even complete), nothing official yet.

While you might be able to recreate the environments from HL:A to create a traditional flat FPS, it would be an entirely different game with a lot of the interesting elements stripped out.

Where VR requires that you "physically" manipulate the environment around you in order to solve puzzles and interact with switches and doors and such, a non VR port would just be a case of pressing your use key at things and watching them play out.

While I still believe that everything to do with VR so far could be dismissed as gimmicky tech demos, this is the first game that has proven to me that VR is a worthwhile investment. With two more full size games in production at Valve, this could well be leading to the turning point where VR developers truly step up their game.

I agree with Urby here.
Unlike when Crysis released and nothing could run it on acceptable rates, this will release to hardware that actually can run it.
If anything can bring the VR industry up its probably this.

Literally the only reason I'm not super excited for this is because I can't personally afford (or have physical space for) a VR setup right now. I'm gonna be late to the party by a few years so I'm trying to not get hyped up.

But it looks gorgeous, gameplay looks exciting, and they're gonna be releasing tools again. This is a net positive for Valve, for fans, and for the industry because this'll sell a lot of Indexes and other VR headsets, opening up the market for even more VR games.

For the past 8 years I thought Valve had lost their touch but it looks like no, they've still got it.

Seeing the Half-Life: Alyx trailer made me a bit teary eyed out of sheer nostalgia. I've hardly even considered buying into VR, but if anything could change my mind then this is it. I've been looking for a reason to get back into mapping and this community, so this seems like a nice opportunity. But the price for a Valve Index is steep. Has anybody here tried an Oculus Rift s? If so, what did you think?

I've been in the market for a new laptop for some while, but I'm quite fastidious about the technical specs and the only laptop that comes close to please me at the moment is the Lenovo Y740 - not that other laptops aren't good enough or have a better look&feel, but a lot of new laptops lack Thunderbolt 3 which I find outrageous.
Anyway, a mobile RTX2070 could run this right? But man, throwing in the extra 400 bucks for the Oculus would literally rape my pockets.

Otherwise, I thought that maybe buying one of those smarphone doodads that you strap to the eyes like the Oculus would enable one to watch 3D replays of somebody playing the game. I mean, who has time playing these days amirite?

Moo! I tried a Vive once, but that was with a program for visualising linguistics research data at uni. Was pretty cool and felt decently natural, though a bit pixely but that might have been the software's fault. Couldn't complain about the responsiveness

It’s hilarious that some of us are willing to do human trafficking for this. :/

Holy shit a wild Madcow appears! How you been man?

Half-Life: Alyx will reunite the TWHL community. Just waiting on Luke, Seventh Monkey, Ant, Zombieloffe, Tosse and Saribous.

Holy shit a wild Madcow appears! How you been man?

Long time no see! My engineering studies and work took over most of my spare time for the past 7 years. It's good to see that there are still some familiar faces around here.

Moo! I tried a Vive once, but that was with a program for visualising linguistics research data at uni. Was pretty cool and felt decently natural, though a bit pixely but that might have been the software's fault. Couldn't complain about the responsiveness

That sounds pretty cool! I've never tried any VR myself. I'm impressed to hear that it felt natural and responsive in any way.

I played the VR Rick & Morty game at a friend's house aaaages ago. It blew my mind when I was crouching down, reached out to steady myself on a table that wasn't there and fell over.

But while that was fun for an hour, I'm not sure I'd want to spend 14 hours playing a full game that way.

We knew Valve couldn't release a new Half-Life game without pushing upcoming hardware.

Everyone didn't have PC's back then, now they do - Everyone doesn't have VR...

Therefore, HL3 will be released for quantum computers!
Everyone doesn't have quantum computers.

I may just play it at a Internet cafe
I don't have the space for VR

I don't have the space for VR

Do newer VR solutions still require those pillar positional sensors to be placed around in a room? I thought the new Oculus uses cameras mounted on the headset and a gyro or something?

Do newer VR solutions still require those pillar positional sensors to be placed around in a room? I thought the new Oculus uses cameras mounted on the headset and a gyro or something?

Only the Oculus quest does this, sadly. The Oculus Quest can't run decent games on its own, so you have to buy extra cables and whatnot to link it to your PC.

I'm gonna guess that we're gonna see that Combine mothership (or whatever it is) in at least a half-dozen maps and mods before Alyx is even out.

I see in the far distance a TOTAL FAILURE... It´s not normal to push people to spend 1500$ or more just to play an only game. It´s nuts. Bad is the situation for a game if it have to go VR just to make us be interested... Just my opinion.

I don't know, Valve Index set sales skyrocketed after the announcement of HLA.

It´s not normal to push people to spend 1500$ or more just to play an only game

The mobile industry has been doing this for years.

Whatever the outcome Valve will come out of this with more $ before they entered and they know it. If it turns out great other devs will jump on board and we will have more AAA VR experiences, if it doesn't this will show that VR may not be worth pursuing.

Amen

New footage

ok so the non vr version is in the game just sux XD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFPLieBpiU8

This game is amazing, it's the best thing Valve made since Portal 1
I thought Portal 2 was the actual masterpiece.

Alright, so I've spoiled some scenes for myself. Oh my god does it look gorgeous. And I'd probably just have to wait until autumn or december to play this in VR. Perhaps equipments will drop down in price until then.
I wonder what other games will come out on Source 2 and if we'll have access to the tools (Hammer) soon.

I'm curious what others think of HL: A's storytelling style. Based on the gameplay videos I've seen, like HL and Portal it's all done in-game without cutscenes but unlike Gordon, Adrian, Chell and the rest Alyx actually talks. So basically you're walking around and the game plays sound files which other characters react to. It gets a lot more story across far easier than working around a mute player character, but it's something of a change for HL.

I think it works in Alyx because she's an established character who we're familiar with from previous titles. I don't think a talking protagonist by any way removes from an experience, but then I was brought up on Build engine games, famous for mouthy protagonists.

I still prefer it to control and camera being wrenched away from the player entirely so we can see a cutscene that we ultimately have no involvement with.

Iv'e watched the whole playthrough and imho I found the story lacking.
It never felt like a Half-Life game to me, more like a game with HL's props thrown in for the sake of calling it Half-Life. Obviously I didn't play it "how you are supposed to", but even given that I don't think much would change, unless you are looking for action which I was not in this case.

This is more of an "experimental piece" and I'm excited for what a HL2 equivalent to HL:A could be.

I have't posted here in a while - but I just have to chime in that watching Alyx and playing it are not comparable.
I admittedly bought an Oculus Rift S just to play it. Here is my Steam review:

"When I was 12, I played Half-Life for the first time in 1998. I remember running next door to excitedly grab my dad, all to show him that a character was talking to me. "His mouth is moving!" "He is looking at me!"
I did the same when I discovered I could break windows, push boxes, drive a train - I had never experienced anything like it before in my life and it was a feeling of awe that I still remember to this day.
Half-Life Alyx is my first experience with VR, and I cannot understate how impressed I am with how VR engages you with the world and your interactions within it. Once again, Valve is making me feel like a 12 year old boy playing something that will have a profound impact on my gaming life.
VR may be at the beginning of its journey, but it is here to stay, and is only going to get better.
What a start to it."

The Half-Life series evokes emotions that only Valve seem to be able to create for me, and this was no exception.
The only downside is that I want more, and for their next game to be in VR now.

Edit:

Do newer VR solutions still require those pillar positional sensors to be placed around in a room? I thought the new Oculus uses cameras mounted on the headset and a gyro or something?

-
To add to this - The Oculus Rift S has internal sensors, so does not require external devices - that is why I bought it. Also, unlike the Quest it connects to your GPU with a 5m cable, plus it has haptic feedback and touch sensors on the controllers which add to immersion - running your "hand" along a surface will give you a false sense of touching something which is cool, and it has thumb, index finger and "rest of hand" detection. The only downside so far to the headset is that the room must be lit for the cameras to work for positioning - but all that amounts to is not playing it in the dark!

Looking nice so far.

Echoes VR when?

Just kidding.