Half-Life: Alyx - Valve's full-length flagship VR game set between HL1 and HL2

[taxalot]

If you could move around naturally you would probably complete the game in two hours.

 

[ADL]

i-i-i-it's just a spin-off!

 

[Venser]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546560/announcements/detail/1711869822747139586

Valve Index Availability and Half-Life: Alyx Preview Locations

On Monday March 9th, the Valve Index VR system will be made available again for purchase after having been out of stock for some time. Recent demand for the Index system has been high, so we do expect that available stock on hand will sell out quickly. We will continue to take orders after those units have been sold, so purchases beyond this initial quantity will be fulfilled in the order in which they are received, as supplies increase over the coming months. The exact time that the Valve Index will be made available on Monday is 10:00 AM Pacific (5:00 PM UTC).

If you already own a Valve Index, or have ordered one, the bonus Half-Life: Alyx preview locations have just been released and are now accessible to you via Steam VR Home. Starting now, you can download and visit two locations from the game, before the game comes out on March 23rd. One is an outdoor space taken from City 17 in the shadow of the under-construction Citadel. The other is Russell's laboratory, where he helps Alyx make plans to take on the Combine. The rendering technology available in SteamVR's native environments is different than that in Half-Life: Alyx, and the interactivity is significantly lower than what the game itself provides. So while these scenes do not have quite as much fidelity as they will in the actual game, we think they are a faithful enough translation to provide a fun VR preview of the game's setting.

If you don't own a Valve Index but would like to check these environments out in VR before March 23rd, you can ask an Index owner to host a SteamVR Home session for you.

 

[Dayyālu]

With developer commentary

One will need to wait for the full game to properly evaluate, but fuck this looks atrocious.

Choppy movement and vision is expected, but there's barely any design in there. Gimmicks are flat-out from Half Life 2 (barrels and barnacles, yay) and the zombies are completely non-responsive because the player can barely aim and react with a basic speed. Imagine a VR player thrown even in the first levels of HL2, or even in the first level of Half Life 1 and you'd have a massacre because he could not deal with several enemies moving slowly against him. You need stationary enemies to even aim. This will destroy any chance at encounter design.

Are basic headcrabs even in? From what I see they could be too hard for the majority of players. Imagine having to rotate to engage an enemy, insane requirements in 2020 gaming.

Also, awesome, Valve, upgrades for weapons. We're running on the apex of design, around 2001. Probably they're meant to help basic gameplay, red dots and the like help immensely with target acquisition.

We'll need to see the entirety of the game out, but when even hardcore VR shills see this and go "uh, this looks crappy" doubts should come in.

 

[taxalot]

Conspiracy theory: they were tired of people asking for HL3 ; they did a shitty VR game just to kill the franchise so that people would leave them alone and stop camping on their lawn.

 

[Venser]

One will need to wait for the full game to properly evaluate, but fuck this looks atrocious.

Choppy movement and vision is expected, but there's barely any design in there. Gimmicks are flat-out from Half Life 2 (barrels and barnacles, yay) and the zombies are completely non-responsive because the player can barely aim and react with a basic speed. Imagine a VR player thrown even in the first levels of HL2, or even in the first level of Half Life 1 and you'd have a massacre because he could not deal with several enemies moving slowly against him. You need stationary enemies to even aim. This will destroy any chance at encounter design.

Are basic headcrabs even in? From what I see they could be too hard for the majority of players. Imagine having to rotate to engage an enemy, insane requirements in 2020 gaming.

Also, awesome, Valve, upgrades for weapons. We're running on the apex of design, around 2001. Probably they're meant to help basic gameplay, red dots and the like help immensely with target acquisition.

We'll need to see the entirety of the game out, but when even hardcore VR shills see this and go "uh, this looks crappy" doubts should come in.

It's a tutorial level, I'm sure enemies will get faster and more challenging later on. Headcrabs are in the game obviously. I think you're underestimating the aiming abilities in VR games. Have you ever played a VR FPS? I'm already scoring headshots in VR games, taking on multiple enemies, spinning guns between shots, throwing magazines up in the air and catching them with my pistols so I'm pretty sure I could easily John Wick through Half-Life 2.

 

[Sentinel]

Been watching some of these smooth movement gameplay clips and the voice acting is atrocious. It's like every line is delivered with an underlying comedy smirk, desperately reaching out for a punchline that never comes.

 

[Dayyālu]

It's a tutorial level, I'm sure enemies will get faster and more challenging later on. Headcrabs are in the game obviously.

Let's hope so, because that video is flat-out boring to watch. Noticeable how the animations and the staggering is far worse than in Half Life 1/2 to let the player enough time to, well, aim with a subpar system.

I think you're underestimating the aiming abilities in VR games. Have you ever played a VR FPS?

Nope, there isn't anything in VR worthy of wasting money on it. I've tried VR gaming (not FPS), it never clicked properly with me (feels weird and unnatural).

I'm already scoring headshots in VR games, taking on multiple enemies, spinning guns between shots, throwing magazines up in the air and catching them with my pistols so I'm pretty sure I could easily John Wick through Half-Life 2.

I'd love seeing that, it would kill some of my fears of "VR means another steep decline regaring FPS mechanics&design". All the FPS VR videos I've seen look clunky, slow, or merely memetic shit that's funny to watch because it's dumb. I've said several times I see milsim guys enjoying that, because milsim is clunky and slow by nature.

Because, let's be serious, that video is mechanically inferior to House of the Dead 1 from a FPS perspective.

 

[ADL]

When transitioning a game from a desktop experience to a virtual reality experience, interactions desktop users don't even think about inherently turn these games into immersive sims therefore it's incline. Instead of scrolling through an interaction menu to drink a glass of coffee, you can just bring your hand up to your mouth tracked in nearly 1:1 precision and "drink it".

I think a lot of people really underestimate and minimize virtual reality and what's possible. Crowbcat did a good video on Pavlov which is basically Counter Strike in VR and you can see how different it is when you actually have to reload your gun and stabilize the recoil, being able to steal the magazine out of someone's hand and kill them with their own ammo.

 

[Dayyālu]

Crowbcat did a good video on Pavlov which is basically Counter Strike in VR and you can see how different it is when you actually have to reload your gun and stabilize the recoil

Performance wise, completely inferior to mouse+kb. Again, that can be enjoyed for fun&giggles and the milsim crowd, but what years of rail shooters taught us is that having pin-point precision with a mouse beats having a "real gun". Hell, shooting with a real gat is far more difficult regarding targets acquisition and reload, and I should know that.

I've seen a lot of videos on VR shooters and they all look clunky, slow, gimmicky and with semplified maps. Even Counterstrike VR looks like a gimmick, I'd love seeing a VR team try to keep at bay mouse+kb players. We both know what would happen, utter destruction in seconds.

Maybe there's a market for this kind of gimmicky slow-perfomance shooters (milsim probably) but I can't see it improving the basics of FPS gameplay (level design, enemy design, weapon design) in any way. While I can see ArmA working perfectly, I can't see Tribes working similarly. This is not gameplay innovation, this is selling gimmicks.

being able to steal the magazine out of someone's hand and kill them with their own ammo.

Useless gimmicks.

I'm very curious about Alyx, mostly because I'm quite butthurt that Valve is dumping a new HL game that's just a gimmick, and the first video was frankly between the boring and the.... well, just simply boring.

But I've been repeating the same points on this thread for the.... third time now? Time to wait for release and see if Alyx will blow minds or will simply blow.

 

[Venser]

In VR you can often dual wield and shoot different targets at the same time which isn't possible witch mouse and keyboard. But what are we arguing? That mouse and keyboard is more effective and precise? Sure but VR is all about immersion and mouse and keyboard feels nothing like using real weapons so the fact that it can be more effective is completely irrelevant.

 

[ADL]

That specific example of being able to steal a magazine out of someone's hands might be a gimmick but it's indicative of a fundamental change in game design towards something that you typically only see in immersive sims (in a lesser form) and it fundamentally changes the way you play the game that's detail oriented in VR.

That reminds me of another thing I wonder about the VR naysaying... How much of it is coming from people who aren't too happy that their games are now reliant on their physical abilities? I'd imagine I'd be upset about Half-Life Alyx if I were 400lbs too.

 

[AW8]

That's rich coming from a shill named "DeLarge"

 

[Citizen]

So you shoot enemies without moving at all, except just to change cover? Does that mean FPSes went full circle and finally returned to their arcade roots?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

That specific example of being able to steal a magazine out of someone's hands might be a gimmick but it's indicative of a fundamental change in game design towards something that you typically only see in immersive sims (in a lesser form) and it fundamentally changes the way you play the game that's detail oriented in VR.

That reminds me of another thing I wonder about the VR naysaying... How much of it is coming from people who aren't too happy that their games are now reliant on their physical abilities? I'd imagine I'd be upset about Half-Life Alyx if I were 400lbs too.

It's literally gravity gun attached to hand palms. "Fundamental change in game design" my arse.

 

[Jenkem]

I judge all games based on their opening levels, it's why I don't get why people like Half-Life so much, it's literally just a walking sim on a fucking train...

 

[ADL]

It's literally gravity gun attached to hand palms. "Fundamental change in game design" my arse.

So it's a gravity gun that you grab into your hands and continue manipulating the object with your hands. Sounds pretty revolutionary to me. This is what I was talking about when I said that people minimize VR interactions.

This dude from Valve literally spent an hour talking about doors in VR for an hour

 

[Dexter]

Imagine a VR player thrown even in the first levels of HL2, or even in the first level of Half Life 1 and you'd have a massacre because he could not deal with several enemies moving slowly against him. You need stationary enemies to even aim. This will destroy any chance at encounter design.

Are basic headcrabs even in? From what I see they could be too hard for the majority of players. Imagine having to rotate to engage an enemy, insane requirements in 2020 gaming.

Oh look, it's more bullshit from you, like we haven't been over this on page 12.

I pointed out how it can be easier in VR to aim & kill since it's not an abstraction and how some other things in VR are easier too, but you apparently forgot and are back to spouting the same retarded talking points. Not to point out that your "what-if" scenario isn't actually "what if", since I played a bit of HL2 back in 2013 in VR for instance and it was one of the most immersive experiences available back then (just didn't advance much since I wanted to play a later release with a better HMD and controls, which never came from Valve): https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/oculus-rift.79590/page-4#post-3007927

And you can just Google people playing it, you will find several types of videos. The first are from 2013-14 and you'll see people playing their "Official release" with the DK2, and there's some more recent ones playing it via GMod or via a Mod on the Quest, VorpX and similar, the problem is that they are hacky Mods that will come with the issues such things come with often played by people who's first experience of Half Life is right there, and the Modder team that wanted to do a proper conversion are still MIA: https://www.reddit.com/r/hlvr/




The same is true for the first Half Life, but that's even more experimental:



If Valve decides to make any decisions to "dumb it down" (which I can't tell from the bit of Tutorial section with the starting gun they keep showing over and over again for some reason) then that's on them, since their older Half Life titles would be perfectly playable in VR and even other recently released higher profile VR games like Boneworks and similar didn't even feature things like Teleportation: https://steamcommunity.com/app/823500/discussions/3/2619338518529571448/

Personally I already had issues with their overextensive reliance on "playtesting" long before though:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131815/the_cabal_valves_design_process_.php?page=3

Who doesn't remember gems like?

but I can't see it improving the basics of FPS gameplay (level design, enemy design, weapon design) in any way.

As for level design, I can imagine VR would improve the sense of scale a lot. The starting area and some of the town vistas in Half Life 2 were already a lot more impressive seeing them as if you are there and look up at the screen or the buildings than seeing them on a flat screen. Set pieces, interactivity and details/attention to detail in the levels also change, because while you just walk by some graffiti on the wall or some object on a bench and maybe don't even see it while playing something on a monitor you can freely look around and interact with things in VR and might spend more time to just look around at the details. You will also see people try to interact and manipulate static objects in older games since it comes naturally or try to fuck around with NPCs more since you can do things like get up close to them, slap them in the face, poke them etc. like you can see in that L.A. Noire VR video that blew up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72VXMjO14oc and be disappointed if they can't do anything with them or they don't react.

Weapon design, you can already see that in the Gameplay videos so far, the base weapon gets a scope you as a player can put up near your eyes and see vulnerable points while looking through it, or a laser scope that will actually improve aiming while without it you will kinda have to shoot in the general direction of a enemies head and hope that you hit as opposed to the cross-hair in the middle of your screen. Upgrades will have real in-game impacts on performance.

Other things that I can imagine changing is that some of the level design might be more realistic, for example there are very small corridors or pipes you're supposed to walk over and through in Half Life 2 that probably wouldn't appear like that in the real world because they'd give you a feeling of claustrophobia immediately or they're not even practical design when two people can't even pass by one another in the entrance hallway of a building. While that might work as one-off level design on your monitor for the 5 seconds it takes you to pass through there, it appears completely different and unnatural in VR and you will notice it immediately that something is off, like if you entered a building and everything was built for dwarfs and I'd expect more functional design in "made-for VR" games.

Btw. if you use the word "gimmick" 6 times in a single post, maybe you need to consider giving it a rest or find other ways to express yourself.

 

[DalekFlay]

Finally watched gameplay. Why do they show it with the snap-to-move thing on? I read you can play this with normal walking, so why do the videos focus on the opposite which looks fucking horrible. I got a little queasy just watching the video on youtube, because the movement is disorienting. And either way you move around, the game is obviously designed around being able to snap-to-move, so the pacing and interaction look like shit to me. Zero interest. Knowing my luck though it'll take off like a rocket and change the industry.

 

[Dayyālu]

Sure but VR is all about immersion and mouse and keyboard feels nothing like using real weapons so the fact that it can be more effective is completely irrelevant.

Point taken, but I'm essentially butthurt that a shitton of resources went for something that has no worthwile design whatsoever for shooters. You have to purposefully gimp what makes a shooter work to make a VR game.

Plus, I'm curious, it's seriously possible to engage two targets properly in VR? In Real Life, it's borderline possible just with laser pointers and air guns, I personally found hellish and impossible to engage anything with dual 9mm handguns. Did it for shit an' giggles, but you'd need to be one hell of a shooter to hit anything at a decent range

That reminds me of another thing I wonder about the VR naysaying... How much of it is coming from people who aren't too happy that their games are now reliant on their physical abilities?

That will be interesting, much like arcade rail shooters. It's a different skillset for sure.

Oh look, it's more bullshit from you, like we haven't been over this on page 12.

Dexter, I won't even read//watch your dump because it's useless. Gameplay's video is out, it blows, we'll wait for the final version for evaluation. Keep up the cult until then. If the game manages to look good, I'll be the first one to admit defeat.

 

[Dexter]

Dexter, I won't even read//watch your dump because it's useless.

Why am I not surprised? Write a page long of utter bullshit you pulled directly out of your ass while misusing "gimmick" as a filler for every 5th word, and when someone with actual knowledge of the things you're talking about offers a rebuttal say that you didn't read it and declare victory.

 

[Dexter]

 

[FeelTheRads]

Plus, I'm curious, it's seriously possible to engage two targets properly in VR? In Real Life, it's borderline possible just with laser pointers and air guns, I personally found hellish and impossible to engage anything with dual 9mm handguns. Did it for shit an' giggles, but you'd need to be one hell of a shooter to hit anything at a decent range

Of course, with targeting help it would be possible.

Which could be just as well used all the time with all weapons and then Dexter can come and shill some more about how VR is just as precise as mouse+keyboard like a good console cocksucker. It's the same thing bro, just better.
Imagine thinking a shooter where you can teleport in predefined location plays the same as a regular shooter.
Btw, how the fuck is teleporting supposed to be immersive in VR? Did you know VRtards that we're not actually teleporting when walking? And also our hands don't float in front of our eyes. And we don't press buttons to use our hands. But it's totally immersive, bro.

Imagine being just like consoletards (ie shilling for shitty gimmicks while playing otherwise inferior games in both gameplay and graphics) but pretending to be superior. Because you have money and obviously whoever doesn't buy this shit hardware doesn't. VRtards are literally stupider than consoletards. In the future, they will be considered responsible for decline, not the consoletards.

 

[GewuerzKahn]

Plus, I'm curious, it's seriously possible to engage two targets properly in VR? In Real Life, it's borderline possible just with laser pointers and air guns, I personally found hellish and impossible to engage anything with dual 9mm handguns. Did it for shit an' giggles, but you'd need to be one hell of a shooter to hit anything at a decent range

In games like Space Pirate Trainer you aim and shoot at two or more enemies at the same time. It's fun and possible.

Performance wise, completely inferior to mouse+kb. Again, that can be enjoyed for fun&giggles and the milsim crowd, but what years of rail shooters taught us is that having pin-point precision with a mouse beats having a "real gun". Hell, shooting with a real gat is far more difficult regarding targets acquisition and reload, and I should know that.

Who cares which input device performance better? I don't get the arguement.

 

[Dexter]