Great Half life 2 mod idea Thread

Hello there!!
My name is Mathiew and today I want to talk about a greatttt idea that I got.An idea for a Half life 2 mod!!!Ok so here's my idea.Its a multiplayer zombie survival mod.So the players are in a huge map a huge map like with a little city and forest but im tlaking about a 10 km map.And the players are starting with a back pack with bandage water food and a little pistol.So its kind like DayZ but with the Source Engine (half life engine).And there will be like some weapon and food around the maps (winchester,sniper,tommy gun ect...)And there will be cars but really rare.And the goal is to survive the apocalypse.I hope you guys take the time to read it and hopefully someone will make a mod like that one day cause it will be reaalllyyyy nicceeee.

-Mathiew

I think you should go back to the drawing board.

Day Z with the source engine. Man you are just on fire today!

There was another topic made a few days ago that was somewhat the same idea.
Moddb.com
Maybe see what their plan is, if its still going on.

A 10km map, I don't think is at all possible in Source, think it just reaches just half of that or a bit.

Just reading back over it again, I'm not too sure if this is actually serious :p

keep dreaming closest you can get is nmrih

^All of the above,
+ Source cannot handle that

Perhaps you should play a few more games, watch some episodes of Extra Credits, and try to learn from other game designers before jumping into the field. That way you've got a better chance of coming up with something that doesn't need zombies, or if it does, at least it won't be an idea with zombies that's already done.

Also: Mathiew -- you're its not Matthew? Just asking because I've never seen it spelled that way.

I dont mean DayZ with source engine I i mean a game like DayZ.Like nmrih but in bigger and you dosent have to do mission

Oh and Reqieumthefallen if i spelled it like that its because im french and i dont speak very well english as you can see x)

But do you think Cry engine could do this mod

{BREAKING NEWS}
The source engine can do about 27000000000000 hammer units of map space

Also, I think this would be nice for a source F2P game

Edited by: alex.sarosi341

If you want empty house models on a displacement map with random trees, actually you can do it with source ...

The problem with Source is that you can either have a relatively big map or a somewhat detailed one.
When detailing your map you'll hit other limits long before the size becomes a problem (entity limits).

There was a mod called Proyect-Z, basically - it was great. I think it is dead now though.

All I'll say is that if you really are planning on doing that in a single source map, in multiplayer... It'll be a bitch to optimize.

As someone with 8+ years experience with Source, I would advise you to avoid it for this. Source Engine can handle small detailed spaces easily, but it will fall apart in large open areas, especially those on the scale that matches the likes of DayZ. Optimisation of a Source map is an art unto itself, and is one of the most convoluted of processes I can think of. If you don't optimise it properly then you will end up with horrible framerates due to everything being rendered at once.

If you want to try something like this, use UDK. It is far more accessible for the customisation you will need to do, and it's rendering engine is far better than Source. To put it one way; say you've made a 3km (roughly one mile) square map in Source and want to playtest it. First you'll need to compile it, and that might take anywhere in the region of 15mins to 15 hours depending on the level of optimisation you've done. If this compiling process goes well, then you'll can go straight into the map and play it. If it doesn't, then you're in for a world of hurt; recompiling, reoptimising, retesting. This is typical for any game level, as there will always be things you won't expect, and the process holds together for small levels, but large cityscapes just aren't feasible. Compare this to UDK, where you can preview instantly and identify bugs quickly.

This is only dealing with the troubles you'll encounter with mapping, there are countless others when it comes to coding too.

Please, if you're going to attempt this, do it in UDK.

TL;DR:
Source isn't good for large maps, try UDK instead.