Why Is Hl Still So Popular
DiscoZombie
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">not complaining, just curious...</div> HL is hella old. There are much prettier game engines out there -- UT2k3, for instance. Why are the best, most popular, and most played mods in the world still in the HL engine? Like, for instance, why isn't NS a UT mod? =P I know nothing of programming. is HL <i>easier</i> to mod? does the engine allow things that would be impossible in a later game? is it just tried-and-true, works on older systems, and everyone has HL so everyone will DL free mods for it? I'm farrr from a UT fanboy. since I've found NS I haven't touched UT. In fact, I haven't seen any non-HL mod that comes close to rivaling the fun factor of HL mods like NS, CS (to an extent), TF, and Action HL (which no one liked but me)... I'm just curious whether it's pure coincidence that no one managed to pull off any uber-popular mods for any other engines...
Comments
HL has survived mainly due to lots of hard work from Valve. Rather than just sitting on their heels they kept supporting the game. I mean hell, name one other developer that makes patches for a 4 year old game? You don't hear any news about SiN do you? Of course not...
Also there's no denying that, in terms of sheer numbers, CS has really prolonged the life of the game. Other mods have helped too, although to a far lesser extent.
That being said, I am still ready for the HL engine do die the death it deserved years ago and finally embrace change and have all the technical beauty of HL2...
Unreal 1 came out earlier that year (98.. right? same year though) and looks great (especially with hi-res textures), even today.
Honestly, if you think about it, getting a game popular isn't hard at all. Same thing happened to me for Natural-Selection. I'll explain, it's quite simple.
The gameplay, is fun, fast, and quite high on the enjoyment scale. Worlds are so intriguing. Basically how it goes is one person gets introduced to this new game, mod, or whatever it may be. He tells his friends, his friends tell there friends. And basically it goes into a continuous loop. Exactly how I heard about Natural-Selection, and I've stuck with it eversince.
The lead character of ont of the most popular games ever is a physicist. Quite a role-model. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Unreal 1 came out earlier that year (98.. right? same year though) and looks great (especially with hi-res textures), even today. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
And how many hours of fun team DM did you play with that copy of U1? HL was technically very advanced for its time, and did things alot of games still weren't doing last year (skeletal animation system, moving mouth models, etc.).
HL1 rulez
About 2. Man Unreal was a horrible game. :P
don't be a hater. you all know cs attracted all kinds of people here in droves. hl was just another platform until cs came and attracted tons of fans.
i don't play cs and i don't have a like or dislike for it like some feverently do, but to anyone with a brain its painfully obvious that cs was the best thing that ever happened to valve. to their credit they came out with the first game to have its own "company-stamped" development interface which allowed cs to be born. sure there were other development interfaces made for other games but they were made by third parties and thus not able to fully utilize the boons of their respective engines. valve set the standard for many future games in that respect. and oh yeah the hl story is great but if stories meant longevity, masses of people would still be playing baldur's gate.
no, cs was the key there. the real question is why to 30,000+ people play cs at any given time during the day? to that i do not have an answer because i myself do not.
Nuff' said. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well counter-strike or the MODS in general....Sad but true, counter-strike keeps HL active.
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AND NATURAL SELECTION <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
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<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One word: Mods.
Nuff' said. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No fair...you posted while I was writing this... *Cries*
1. HUGE player base. (Result of Age + Counter Strike)
2. Ease of Development (Valve Support + Modability)
3. Constantly expanding content. (Mods, a result of 1 and 2.)
These 3 things developed interdependently with each other. CS wouldn't have worked without Valve Support, and Valve wouldn't have supported anything if content didn't grow.