Discussion Podcast 3

16th March 2015

Myself, Don and James discuss the various threads from the Half-Life Sub-Reddit.

We also finish with a discussion about how the Recommendation system works and whether PLAY IT NOW! is being overused.

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Discussion Podcast 03: 1 Hour 28 minutes – 84MB
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The Reddit Threads

The titles have been paraphrased.
Playing through HL for the first time: Good Graphics
Video: Super Secret Spot
The pain of playing EP2 in 2007
Any bad games in the HL franchise?
Video: full length play through with no commentary
Paper: Ep1
What do you think happened to Barney?
Does Gordon have a helmet?
HL2: 68 Loading screens
ASCII Headcrab
Accents in HL2
Are CP modified?
The stages of HL3 deprivation
If HL3 is announced tomorrow, I’ll give you all $5!

Note

Future podcasts will link to individual discussions and be capped to a maximum of 1 hour.

12 Comments

  1. compile

    File not found when I’ll click on link.

    1. Should be okay now, sorry about that.

  2. Need to sort my audio out. You can barely hear me…

    1. Yes, sounds like you need to improve your set up.

  3. For the competition with Sniperville, does it have to be done in one life?

      1. Unq

        Wow, more power to ya. I wasn’t even going to try and tackle that map on hard, I don’t care what the prize was.

  4. Hey Jim! You mentioned doing a video about ai in HL2. Could I help? I already did one on the soldier:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR5gjP-Kk3s

    I’m looking back, and I feel like I want to touch it up. I also wanted to do other units, as well as scripting options, but I’ve never got around to it.

    A collaboration could be interesting. If anything it could split up the work.

    1. Hey. that sounds interesting.
      I’m actually focussing on how to use the various NPC’s rather than how they behave although that does feed into it.

      e.g.
      Normal zombies should be used in close quarters.
      They are designed to generate gameplay where the player has to keep the zombies away from them. The player will try and generate space around them using weapons, phys props and the zombies will try and close that space down.
      Normal zombies in large open areas don’t offer a challenge for the player unless in significant numbers.
      Fast zombies can be used in larger areas as they cover greater distance at a faster rate.

      1. That’s true. Nothing I mention about behavior would help a situation where the mapper chooses the wrong NPC in the first place. And with the combine NPCs their environments are fairly obvious: CPs are good with both linear and non-linear areas, while Soldiers are better with open areas. These still a couple behavioral facts I know about the more simpler NPCs, bur nothing substantial.

        If anything, I could record B-roll footage to free up some of your time.

        1. But I do think the behavior comes into play when explaining how to get the best gameplay out of the NPC. For example, Combine are far more interesting when they have numerous routes they can take. So with that in mind I’d like you to look at what I’m saying at least before I do this so you can provide input?

          1. Sure, that’d be great. If you need an extra hand with anything else too, I’d be more than happy. I think I’m already on your friend’s list.

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