I know that Half Life was never released for the DC, but I read that some beta copies did escape and have been sold on Ebay...
Has anyone played it? And it is any good? I remember reading that it was canned due to dodgy frame rate (but then I also read that it was dropped purely to sell more copies on PS2.....)
Was just thinking how a couple months before the game was due to be released, my local GAME shop had copies of the OFFICIAL strategy guide!!! And it looked like grabs from the DC version.... strange how the game never materialised!!!!!!!
I always hear stories about this game being leaked however if it was it would
be all over Direct Connect and newsgroups and it hasn't at all.
Where'd you read that the framerate was dodgy?
"I'm convinced RenegadeC is in fact not a human, but rather an experimental IRC/QuakeC bot who has the ability to randomly formulate mods and code them, programmed to have a distinct Canadian personality as well."
I read in a magazine article somewhere that the official line from Sierra was that the frame rate dropped in places (due to the DC not being able to handle it). And this was the main reason it was dropped.
I personally think its crap... sierra trying to talk up the PS2 version...
I did read somewhere else that some mags got the final versions sent to them (ign?) but they've never given them out (not wanting to face the wrath of sierra I suppose)...
Wish I could play it!! Was there ever a demo of it released for the official DC magazine??
i was watching techtv the other day, some show "exmachina" (sp?). anyway they did a feature on half-life for dc (it was a re-run, duh) and talking it up and interviewing the development team. it was actually quite sad, the dev team were very excited and one guy even hinted at counter-strike for dc.
you are all bastards for constantly bringing this topic up lol. I wanted HL-DC just as much as anybody but we have to put it in the past. It's gone and we cant change that. Sure I'd kill for a copy [hint hint hint lol just kidding] but so what? that doesnt mean we have to keep reminding everyone that we didnt get it does it? Answer: NO.
It wasn't cancelled because of the frame rates, it was cancelled because
they caught wind of Dreamcast's death and PS2's hype.
"I'm convinced RenegadeC is in fact not a human, but rather an experimental IRC/QuakeC bot who has the ability to randomly formulate mods and code them, programmed to have a distinct Canadian personality as well."
The reason it probably wouldn't have been ripped is cos it was only sent out to journos, and most would even touch a burnt game let alone know how to rip a GD
Prophet][ wrote:The reason it probably wouldn't have been ripped is cos it was only sent out to journos, and most would even touch a burnt game let alone know how to rip a GD
One of these days I bet someone will put it on E-bay. You know it would sell for several hundred dollars. Actualy I think someone all ready did have it on Ebay. See that topic in Off-topic about the DC. The auction has a pic of Half-Life for DC. Get it in the right hands and ID say it would get ripped. Thing is most people who pay that much for a game are not pirates.
There was a guy in the UK who offered his for about 200 pounds.. I believe it sold. I know people who have seen it and played the copy, so it was for real. I wish someone would rip it, I want a copy of it (I have a legit PC half-life, just want to try the DC version). Ditto with Propeller Arena, I know someone who has a beta of it.
Cless wrote:Quake's engine can easly be changed to load HL stages and models.
Dream on, my friend. It is possible, from a technical view. But not from a legal, and it is all but easy. So you can try to port all Quake/Quake II-Engine games to the DC. Theres much more than just some colored lights and triggers that differs from the original engine
Umm... No, actually Cless is right. You can modify the Quake engine to load Half-Life maps quite easily. The BSP files are basically the same, with only three differences that really affect anything.
1) The textures are stored in external WAD files, not in the BSP file.
2) The textures are 8-bit, but have their own colour palette
3) The lighting data has coloured lighting information
Assuming you're using a GLQuake based engine, adding coloured lights is not too difficult. I've done that myself. Adding support for a different BSP version is also not to hard. I've done that myself too. Loading textures from external sources, including ones with different colour palettes and even true-colour textures, is just a simple hack. It's been done before, and it's not really that complex to do.
True, most of the levels won't be playable because the half-life specific triggers, entities and stuff that Quake doesn't have. And Gordon Freeman is taller and thinner than the Quake player, so you can get stuck in some of the really small doors. But you can build a Quake level in Half-life format, and use that.
As for legal - why would it be illegal? It is not illegal to write a program which performs the same function as another program, and the specs for the Half-Life map format were publically released (BSP compiler source code).
BlackAura wrote:Umm... No, actually Cless is right. You can modify the Quake engine to load Half-Life maps quite easily. The BSP files are basically the same, with only three differences that really affect anything.
1) The textures are stored in external WAD files, not in the BSP file.
2) The textures are 8-bit, but have their own colour palette
3) The lighting data has coloured lighting information
Assuming you're using a GLQuake based engine, adding coloured lights is not too difficult. I've done that myself. Adding support for a different BSP version is also not to hard. I've done that myself too. Loading textures from external sources, including ones with different colour palettes and even true-colour textures, is just a simple hack. It's been done before, and it's not really that complex to do.
True, most of the levels won't be playable because the half-life specific triggers, entities and stuff that Quake doesn't have. And Gordon Freeman is taller and thinner than the Quake player, so you can get stuck in some of the really small doors. But you can build a Quake level in Half-life format, and use that.
As for legal - why would it be illegal? It is not illegal to write a program which performs the same function as another program, and the specs for the Half-Life map format were publically released (BSP compiler source code).
BlackAura could you make one stage demo just to show us? I know it can be done but i'd like to see it myself. If you don't have the time I'd understand.
Not on the DC, no. I know of a couple of PC-based Quake engines that do have Half-Life map support, like Dark Places, and QBism. I think that Tomaz Quake has Half-life map support as well.
As for the maps - I really suck at maps. You would not want to see any of my maps, because they are absolutely terrible. Well, maybe they're not that bad. I'll see what I can do.
BlackAura wrote:Not on the DC, no. I know of a couple of PC-based Quake engines that do have Half-Life map support, like Dark Places, and QBism. I think that Tomaz Quake has Half-life map support as well.
As for the maps - I really suck at maps. You would not want to see any of my maps, because they are absolutely terrible. Well, maybe they're not that bad. I'll see what I can do.
If its so easy to change the values to load maps why can't you just open up your offical HL game folder take stage ones map file then edit you build of QuakeDC and load in the map save it and compile?
Cless - It needs hardware accelerator support, and I haven't even got the beginnings of that yet. My port currently only does software mode, and it is very, very hard to do those kind of modifications to the software renderer, because it's all hard-coded for 8-bit with one palette, and 16-stage monochrome lighting. I can't even understand the software renderer, much less improve on it.
