HL Source mod round-up *free mp gaming*

[caesarbear]

It's a lie. Nothing to see here

but a bunch of source mods which you probably already know about. If not, click on them you lazy bastard:

Battle Grounds 2 (http://www.bgmod.com/)
Insurgency (http://www.insmod.net/)
Dystopia (http://www.dystopia-game.com/)
Pirates, Vikings & Knights II (http://www.pvkii.com/)
Zombie Panic! (http://www.zombiepanic.org/)
Zombie Master (http://www.zombiemaster.org/)
Fistful of Frags (http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/)
Empires (http://www.empiresmod.com/)
The Hidden (http://www.hidden-source.com/)
Source Forts (http://www.sourcefortsmod.com/)
Eternal Silence (http://www.eternal-silence.net/)

[Iron Xides]

Mods I'm interested in but haven't yet played:
Age of Chivalry (http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/)

I wouldn't recommend anyone play this. The melee combat felt like I was trying to parry attacks randomly, because it seemed that the enemy could hit me faster than I could spot the animation starting and parry. The ranged combat involved me getting one-shotted ad nauseum by javelins from max range, which is roughly equivalent to getting getting headshotted by an unscoped sniper rifle at close range.

[TurinTuramba]

I always wonder why Dystopia isn´t more popular.

I tried playing TF2 for a while and it feels so boring and shallow compared to Dystopia. I really like the cyberspace/meatspace combination, customizing your char via implants, the well balanced diverse weapons and the setting.
The only real complaint I could see is that the learning curve is too steep and new players can actually make your team less effective due to teamkilling and spawn rules.

[Kael]

Im not much of a multi-player (I have the reflexes of an epileptic zombie). Any good recommendations for single-player half-life 2 mods (besides Portal)?

edit: ignore my question, I just saw there is another thread for this.

[Kunikos]

Dystopia is pretty cool, I really like the hacking stuff.

Also, I tried DIPRIP (or whatever the name is of that vehicle combat TC) and it wasn't that great. Mainly I had a pretty badly lagged game and found it very frustrating to actually turn the vehicle when I needed to (in order to go off ramps, etc) or even hit someone with my gatling guns. The mod is very O.G. Twisted Metal, with slightly better graphics and less character.

[Igor Muravyev]

I've been playing a lot of Pirates Vikings & Knights 2 lately since version 2 came out (go figure, PVK2 actually had a version 1!).

The new blocking is awesome. Takes much more skill to block now, which is good, makes charging moves a lot harder cause the people can block those easily now, and makes swinging quickly more useful since it's harder to block that.

Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of them giving everyone 100% armor when they spawn (used to be 100% health, 0% armor, and you had to pick up armor powerups). This makes the melee much longer and drawn out, and as a result it's much harder to fight 2+ people at once (even when its say 2v2, 3v3, etc) because people just don't die fast enough before someone else gets a hit on you.

Perhaps they should consider some kind of consensual "duel" mode that Jedi Knight 2 had where 2 people fighting each other can only fight each other and wouldn't take damage from anyone else.

Alternatively they could take out the armor again, but I'm sure they did this because of the new emphasis on ranged weapons -- so they'd have to rebalance that somehow, perhaps by giving classes without ranged weapons a way to block projectiles (only the Viking Berserker is lacking both a shield and projectiles).

[Spasticon]

Speaking of excellent HL mods... when the hell is Natural Selection 2 gonna be done already!?!

[JM]

I've always wondered what good HL2 mods there were. Brilliant post, thanks.

[Jason Lutes]

Thanks for the awesome post! You have fulfilled your Qt3 community service responsibility for the year.

[caesarbear]

Thanks for the awesome post! You have fulfilled your Qt3 community service responsibility for the year.
Oh good, glad I got that out of the way. Now I can go back to making stupid photochops with classic gaming logos.

[nutsak]

Speaking of excellent HL mods... when the hell is Natural Selection 2 gonna be done already!?!

Christ, tell me about it. I've waited ages for that to be released. I'd dive back into NS1 but I have a feeling that I'd be disappointed with it now.

[Nelson]

While the free games are great, you need to download the Source SDK to play mods, at least the mod I tried to get. And you can't get the SDK without actually paying for a Source product.

If there really is a way to do it for free, I'd love to know. Otherwise, it looks like ponying up $10 is the only option -- though not an altogether bad one, given the value you get in return.

Nelson

[caesarbear]

While the free games are great, you need to download the Source SDK to play mods, at least the mod I tried to get. And you can't get the SDK without actually paying for a Source product.

If there really is a way to do it for free, I'd love to know. Otherwise, it looks like ponying up $10 is the only option -- though not an altogether bad one, given the value you get in return.
You need the Source SDK Base not the full SDK. That should be an available option to install under the tools tab when you get Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.

[Nezz]

From the Valve Developer Community Wiki (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_SDK_Base):
Note: The free copies of Source games available through the current nVidia or ATi graphics card promotions do not provide access to SDK Base.

[caesarbear]

Fuck! Son of bitch Valve releasing crippleware and making me look like even more of an asshole. I experimented with Battle Grounds 2 and wouldn't you know it, that's the only fucking mod that doesn't use the SDK.

[JM]

It's OK. Anyone who doesn't have Portal doesn't deserve a PC.

[Nelson]

Aw, don't feel bad, caesarbear. $10 is a trivial amount for such a pile of gaming goodness. And I'll give Battle Grounds 2 a whirl.

Nelson

[Shadari]

The Half Life 2 mod I'm looking forward to the most is Black Mesa Source (http://www.blackmesasource.com/), which is a remake of the original Half Life using the Source engine. This is nothing like the one that Valve released that had only a few minor improvements. This one looks just as good as Half Life 2.

[Nezz]

Fuck! Son of bitch Valve releasing crippleware and making me look like even more of an asshole. I experimented with Battle Grounds 2 and wouldn't you know it, that's the only fucking mod that doesn't use the SDK.
It doesn't use the SDK, but apparently it requires HL2. I downloaded the promotional HL2:DM and cancelled Lost Coast, and Battle Grounds 2 doesn't start.

And now this whole Steam nonsense goes back to the trash bin where it belongs. I had a functional Half Life installation that allowed me to play Battle Grounds years ago, and I'm not going to wade through gigabytes of bullshit to get back to that point.

[JMR]

The Half Life 2 mod I'm looking forward to the most is Black Mesa Source (http://www.blackmesasource.com/), which is a remake of the original Half Life using the Source engine. This is nothing like the one that Valve released that had only a few minor improvements. This one looks just as good as Half Life 2.

Yeah but will it be released before the next ice age?

[quatoria]

If you have a functional half-life installation, you should be able to put the key into Steam to be able to either redownload it, or download the SDK, shouldn't you?