WHAT?! BAD NEWS? IS THE PROJECT CANCELLED?! No, calm down. Half-Life: Enriched is going to be developed further but there is going to be a fundamental change. More on that later.. let's start with some good news.
The Good news
I've mentioned in my last post that I submitted a HL deathmatch map for the The Whole Half-Life mapping competition. Recently the results were posted and my map, Core Critical, has reached first place!
I had not made a deathmatch map before and there was some stiff competition, so I'm really happy with the recognition from the judges. You can find all entries on the competition page or download the latest version of Core Critical. The first prize was the amazing Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar book but since I already own a copy, I decided to forgo my prize and instead pitched an idea to the THWL judges to host a new event later this year. This way someone will get another shot at that great piece of Half-Life literature. I'll be sure to report on that once it happens!
The Bad news
The bad news unfortunatly has to do with the development of Half-Life: Enriched. From the start I really wanted to support all versions of Half-Life, including the old retail version of Half-Life also known as WON Half-Life. However, with the addition of a new Half-Life version and a new SDK, things have become complicated. Let me whip up a chart!
As you can see, there are two SDK's I'm working with. The original 2.3 for WON Half-Life and the new Unified SDK for Steam Half-Life. However, after November 2023 Steam Half-Life was forked into two branches. That basically leaves me with three different engine versions with their own unique limitations and quirks.
However, each map will still have to function with all these three versions. If I change something in a map to accomendate the 25th anniversary version, then it might break the WON version or even the legacy Steam version.
Next to that the Unified SDK comes with new features that I want to use in the map but are not available in the old WON SDK. And it's not as easy as copy and pasting code over to the old SDK. The Unified SDK is structured different and uses a much newer updated version of C++. As a coder, I'm a rookie at best and translating new code to the old standard from 25 years ago requires a lot of current and legacy knowledge.
The reason why updates have stalled over the last months, is that I have to keep up with all these factors. It's extremely tedious work going through the maps for the 100th time fixing up things and breaking new things along the way. I even thought of doing seperate map versions for each SDK version but it's just too much to handle. Quite frankly, it's also grinding down my motivation. My aspiration to support all old Half-Life versions have become the ball and chain tied to my ankles. I'm not going to finish Half-Life: Enriched this way.
So with a heavy heart I'm going to cut the legacy support from my list. I will still supply the last WON DLLs with the build, along with the config files and menu art for the old Half-Life retail version. You will probably still have an experience that's 95% accurate when using these files. I might get the legacy support back on the list if I can find someone to help me with the code issues but for now going forward, it's going to be Steam 25th anniversary edition only.
The Potentionally Good news
By leaving the legacy support behind (for now) this will mean there will be more frequent update to Half-Life: Enriched. I've actually done a lot of work over the last few months using the new Unified SDK and the new features, most noticable the skill based and random encounters. Be sure to read my previous post on how these function.
With the next update, the Single Player campaign will start getting its final form. Then it's on the the co-operative conversion, which I'm looking forward to most! Hope to see you all soon next time.
Trying to make the mod work with three different versions of the game sounds like a ton of work for just one person, I think you're making the right choice here.
Agreed. Even providing WON support (while extremely cool) sounds tedious. While each of us still hangs around on a Engine that's older than most the users on this website. There's still some truth to the following saying: We've got to move on and put old Ghosts to rest.
I would even exclude WON support if I were you. There are few fossils that still use WON to this day due to their paranoia of using tools such as Steam. Every mobile retail company, Google they already know all and everything they need to know about you as a person (a lot). To be afraid to use Steam, Epic the EA Client etc. it all the sudden starts sounding absurd. It certainly was a valid thought pattern in the early 2000s but no longer holds any subsistence. Of course it's everyone else's prerogative.
The majority of WON users use cracked versions as they never bothered to purchase this great gem of a game. Not even for $1. Why should they get supported?
I'd limit myself only on the 25th anniversary edition. Safe yourself as much time and headache as possible. But that reflects only my personal opinion though.
Nice projecting about "fear of Steam". Personally I just always used WON because it has nicer oldschool effects and menu. (The anniversary update imitates that menu, but has other issues).
On that I certainly agree with you Cvoxalury. I myself miss the old epic Opposing Force main menu that had this moving animation playing. But still. At the end it's the game that counts & not the main menu where you spend less than a minute on. As for issues and game bugs. There are numerous mods out there that re-enabled the full set of old WON game behaviors. One has just to look.
That's fair, but super sad. I always used Xash whenever possible because of GoldSrc's terrible dynamic light stuttering.
A very good call. I presume that by 2024 the WON players are such a tiny minority anyway that catering to them is pure waste compared to the necessary effort.