Are you kidding? ValvE <b><i>LOVES</b></i> modders.
BTW: I think that getting NS to HL2 wouldn't take as much time as it did to get to HL1 simply because you can completly circumvent the balance tests and perhaps get a clone (Or near enough) of NS 2.0 out to satisfy people, and THEN work on everything.
It would take major time for them to re-mod everything, I guess you could say. Countless hours, upon more countless hours. It just wouldn't be pretty for the devlopers, and volunteers. But in the end, it would all be worth it. That's my .02 on the topic.
Update: It's now clear that directly porting NS content to HL2 would take, litterally, just a few days to recompile. It is the code that would most likely have to be redone.
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Flay has said that further major versions of NS will really demand that the mod make moola somehow to support all the work being put into it. I think that, more than anything, is the biggest hurdle to a NS2. And also the biggest opportunity. Clearly, NS is one of the most innovative and complex mods out there, taking things in a very unique direction. Valve has a history of investing in great mods, but I think they are also moving away from this to simply providing a platform through which modders can sell their creations if they so desire.
I'm not sure how this would work for NS. Putting a price on a game is often something that only works as long as you have a retail box: because casual and retail gamers are really still the bulk of the market out there to tap, and are often willing to pay more for games than net savvy people (for whom everything must be a free download or = crap). This is pretty obvious from the amount of people who are willing to pay 15$ in a store for things you can get for free online. If the price was $5 a copy online, out of say 600 people buying, that's still only 3000$: very small potatoes for so much work.
So personally, I'd love to see a NS2 in retail stores, and I hope the team gets this sort of business opportunity.
<!--QuoteBegin--Apos+Aug 5 2003, 11:39 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Apos @ Aug 5 2003, 11:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Update: It's now clear that directly porting NS content to HL2 would take, litterally, just a few days to recompile. It is the code that would most likely have to be redone. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> uhhh more than just a 'few days' I am sure. try months? (if that)
If you're just going to convert it to HL2, retaining all the models, textures and such....then there is no reason to put it onto HL2. HL1 can do it fine for now.
If you're just going to convert it to HL2, retaining all the models, textures and such....then there is no reason to put it onto HL2. HL1 can do it fine for now.
<!--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-->uhhh more than just a 'few days' I am sure. try months? (if that) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nope. As per the Valve chat on Monday, they are releasing utilities that allow you to convert HL1 content to HL2-ready content with the SDK. Maps, textures, models, everything. All you have to do is redo in the way of gruntwork is add new entities and rename some things (define materials). Especially since most modders start out with higher res source art that they scaled down for HL, they could even dump in higher res textures right away.
It's the game code that's the big question: how much of it will work, and how much will have to be rewritten?
<!--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-->If you're just going to convert it to HL2, retaining all the models, textures and such....then there is no reason to put it onto HL2. HL1 can do it fine for now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure. Then again, there is no reason not to either. A lot of things would instantly be better. Faster netcode (supposedly by a factor of two). Better particle effects. Better lighting. Scaling LODs. Detail effects. Bumpmapping. Specularity. Better water/goo.
I doubt the team would ever want to do a simple port, as it would be bad publicity to have older HL era source art in an engine that makes it look dated. Better to totally revamp things (I'm guessing that subtle things like movement "feel" will be different too)
<!--QuoteBegin--Apos+Aug 6 2003, 03:53 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Apos @ Aug 6 2003, 03:53 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> All you have to do is redo in the way of gruntwork is add new entities and rename some things (define materials). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Now, I'm not totally discrediting your statement, because I don't have the full experience, but I just want to point out that things that sound simple may not be. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--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-->I am guessing you are running win XP or NT. You are also using OpenGL with that Radeon card. You also probably haven't seen Roobubbas excellent guide to fixing the 60 fps problem that most people get.
Here is a link to the topic that will help you get 100 fps instead of 60 or lower.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a side topic for sure... but how would setting your vsync to off do anything but cause unneccesarily high CPU usage and ugly frame tears?
If the monitor is running at 60 Hz refresh rate it is incapable of showing more than 60 frames per second, turning vsync of basically just drops parts of frames and still does not solve the problem with 60 Hz refresh rate, the nasty flickering. The only thing positive about it when you have a system that comfortably runs at the refreshrate of the monitor is the FPS bugs of NS 1.0x which now are fixed. Use something like refreshlock or powerstrip to force XP or win2k to run at a higher refresh rate and for the sake of Pete don't turn of the vsync. Having a higher framerate than 60 Hz would hardly be justifiable if CRTs did not flicker so badly(they essentially vary from black to bright between each frame, ugh... at ~80 Hz it's not really noticable). TFT screens don't flicker, period, using it a 60 Hz is absolutely fine even for games, going higher than 60 Hz would be very hard to notice at all.
If you can barely run at your refresh rate there might be some motivation to turn it off, experiment. With vsync on you can only draw whole frames, the framerates that are possible are roughly refresh rate/n where n is some positive integer (1,2,3 ...). If you experience framerates dips like this all of the time(not just when looking at 20 turrets) then you might actually consider turning of vsync, if not then don't ever touch it.
@valve-gabe: "How do I convert my Half-Life mod to Half-Life 2?" Models, animations, and textures just need to be compiled with the new tools. The maps can be loaded into Hammer and saved in the new format (VMF). The code should be pretty familiar to Half-Life mod authors, but there is some porting of the code as some specific engine features are implemented differently usually - much more generally.
that was taken from moddatabase.com where they posted all gabes and other hl2 devs' answers that where given in a chat log .... and this is the site
Comments
BTW: I think that getting NS to HL2 wouldn't take as much time as it did to get to HL1 simply because you can completly circumvent the balance tests and perhaps get a clone (Or near enough) of NS 2.0 out to satisfy people, and THEN work on everything.
------
Flay has said that further major versions of NS will really demand that the mod make moola somehow to support all the work being put into it. I think that, more than anything, is the biggest hurdle to a NS2. And also the biggest opportunity. Clearly, NS is one of the most innovative and complex mods out there, taking things in a very unique direction. Valve has a history of investing in great mods, but I think they are also moving away from this to simply providing a platform through which modders can sell their creations if they so desire.
I'm not sure how this would work for NS. Putting a price on a game is often something that only works as long as you have a retail box: because casual and retail gamers are really still the bulk of the market out there to tap, and are often willing to pay more for games than net savvy people (for whom everything must be a free download or = crap). This is pretty obvious from the amount of people who are willing to pay 15$ in a store for things you can get for free online. If the price was $5 a copy online, out of say 600 people buying, that's still only 3000$: very small potatoes for so much work.
So personally, I'd love to see a NS2 in retail stores, and I hope the team gets this sort of business opportunity.
uhhh more than just a 'few days' I am sure. try months? (if that)
Edit: OOOPS. Double post
Nope. As per the Valve chat on Monday, they are releasing utilities that allow you to convert HL1 content to HL2-ready content with the SDK. Maps, textures, models, everything. All you have to do is redo in the way of gruntwork is add new entities and rename some things (define materials). Especially since most modders start out with higher res source art that they scaled down for HL, they could even dump in higher res textures right away.
It's the game code that's the big question: how much of it will work, and how much will have to be rewritten?
<!--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-->If you're just going to convert it to HL2, retaining all the models, textures and such....then there is no reason to put it onto HL2. HL1 can do it fine for now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure. Then again, there is no reason not to either. A lot of things would instantly be better. Faster netcode (supposedly by a factor of two). Better particle effects. Better lighting. Scaling LODs. Detail effects. Bumpmapping. Specularity. Better water/goo.
I doubt the team would ever want to do a simple port, as it would be bad publicity to have older HL era source art in an engine that makes it look dated. Better to totally revamp things (I'm guessing that subtle things like movement "feel" will be different too)
Now, I'm not totally discrediting your statement, because I don't have the full experience, but I just want to point out that things that sound simple may not be. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Um, no. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, they're making a completely new engine from scratch.
Here is a link to the topic that will help you get 100 fps instead of 60 or lower.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a side topic for sure... but how would setting your vsync to off do anything but cause unneccesarily high CPU usage and ugly frame tears?
If the monitor is running at 60 Hz refresh rate it is incapable of showing more than 60 frames per second, turning vsync of basically just drops parts of frames and still does not solve the problem with 60 Hz refresh rate, the nasty flickering. The only thing positive about it when you have a system that comfortably runs at the refreshrate of the monitor is the FPS bugs of NS 1.0x which now are fixed. Use something like refreshlock or powerstrip to force XP or win2k to run at a higher refresh rate and for the sake of Pete don't turn of the vsync. Having a higher framerate than 60 Hz would hardly be justifiable if CRTs did not flicker so badly(they essentially vary from black to bright between each frame, ugh... at ~80 Hz it's not really noticable). TFT screens don't flicker, period, using it a 60 Hz is absolutely fine even for games, going higher than 60 Hz would be very hard to notice at all.
If you can barely run at your refresh rate there might be some motivation to turn it off, experiment. With vsync on you can only draw whole frames, the framerates that are possible are roughly refresh rate/n where n is some positive integer (1,2,3 ...). If you experience framerates dips like this all of the time(not just when looking at 20 turrets) then you might actually consider turning of vsync, if not then don't ever touch it.
that was taken from moddatabase.com where they posted all gabes and other hl2 devs' answers that where given in a chat log .... and this is the site
<a href='http://features.moddb.com/interview/52/?page=0' target='_blank'>http://features.moddb.com/interview/52/?page=0</a>