Talk:List of Half-Life 2 mods/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Perhaps this should be merged with an article on Half-Life 2 mods?

The world of modding Half-Life 2 and the Source engine is rather large, and an encyclopedic article on the topic would be useful. Then this list could simply be merged with that article.

I disagree. Merging this list with the page for any specific Source modification would only seek to confuse readers. Héous 10:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone's added the words "PENIS FUCKER" on the first group of links - however the vandalised text appears to be uneditable when I attempt to remove it from the page. Other than that - great list of links ;) Spongtastic 11:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: Seems to have gone while I posted.. Cheers - Spongtastic 11:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Improved the Shadow Phoenix stuff.

Sprafa


If the mod doesn't have a working website, it shouldn't be on the list. This is a directory for mods that are actually being developed, not proposals and ads. -2ltben

Moved

This should be moved back to List of Half-Life 2 mods, since that is exactly what it is. It's standard to title lists as "list of X" (see Category:Lists). --Mrwojo 14:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. This is very much a list as opposed to an article of an encyclopedia. --Asterism 05:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The move has been effected. --Cyde Weys votetalk 00:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Pong Source

Someone should add Pong Source. I'm too lazy to add it, but not too lazy to bring it to the attention of others. Go figure..~

Given the recent release of the Dystopia demo [1], it seems like it might be a good idea to seperate mods that you can actually go and play now from ones with hazy release dates. Any thoughts? --Sum0 17:54, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Considering how most of the mods on the list don't even have a demo out, it would be very helpful to people if a list of currently playable mods were to be included here. MegaSlicer 22:28, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I've categorised it into Released mods and Mods in development. Possible problem in that it implies that the released mods are finished and aren't being developed and that the mods in development are actually being developed (whereas some of them may have been abandoned) but the natural flow of Wikipedia will iron out the problems. I hope. --Sum0 12:29, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Dead Links

Dark Forces Mod

Released Mods?

In the section about released mods, what exactly qualifies as "released". If by released, we mean the final version then mods such as Plan of Attack do not belong there. However, if by released we mean alpha stages and above (anything playable basically) then several of the mods listed as "in development" should be moved up. For example, Plan of Attack is currently in Beta 4, and is shown as released. GoldenEye Source is in alpha stages (with a downloadable alpha) but is listen under development. --Deemo 05:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I wonder, does Rocket Crowbar not count as released? Admitted, they do not advertise it on the front page of their website, however it has been announced in the forum and I have successfully installed and tested it and even gave a bit of feedback. Rocket Crowbar is distributed via Vapour Online. --Pizzahut2 22:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the "definition of released mods" at the beginning of the article, I think the download should also be easily, intuitively accessible from the mod's website. This would rule out Weapons Factory 2, which has the (now outdated) download link in the description of how to install the mod, while the files section is empty. For the record, WF2 is in alpha stage. This would also rule out Rocket Crowbar which I mentioned above, as the release is only available in the forum, not on the front page. RC is in beta stage. --Pizzahut2 17:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Format of page

I believe the formatting for this article is extremely dirty to be honest. For example, some of the MOD names are links to the wikipedia articles, and some of them are bold. There should be a standard: if the mod does not exist, either we link to an empty wikipedia article, or we make the name bold until an article is created. An example of this is HL2 CTF. It links to nowhere, but it is not bolded like the Eclipse mod. Others, like Veama: The Last War, are both bolded AND link to nowhere --Deemo 05:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The lists should have a standard formatting. The name of the mod should link to a wikipedia article, whether it has one or not. It should also be alphabetized. Perhaps after the traffic from digg and steam dies down, someone can make the changes.--64.179.161.11 00:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Linked from Steam Update

This page has been linked from the very front page of today's Steam update window. It's only a click away to about a million people. Umm, just might want to put this on your watchlist!! --Cyde Weys votetalk 03:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

the HL2 Substance description...

...is bloo[min] awful. Terrible grammar and makes no sense whatsoever to the reader. I suggest cutting it down a LOT to get rid of the nonsense. About 1 sentence should be enough to describe it enough.

Fixed Substance Description

I fixed the description of Substance, it WAS awful. Hope it makes sense to people now.

Adding They Hunger: Lost Souls

I was going to add They Hunger: Lost Souls [2] to the list, but I'm not sure if it's actually a mod or it's own game. Maybe someone here knows the answer. Is this a mod or is it a standalone game? The web site makes it sound very vauge. "They Hunger: Lost Souls is a first-person action commercial game powered by the award-winning Half-Life 2 Source engine from Valve Software" So it will not be free, but is it stand alone? I'm not sure on this point, but if someone finds out it is indeed a mod, please add it.--64.179.161.11 20:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a commercial game based on the Source engine, so it's not a Half-Life 2 mod, and thus doesn't belong on this page. --Cyde Weys votetalk 00:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The first "They Hunger" was a collection of three mods for the original half life. It looks like They Hunger: Lost Souls will be a commercial product though. But they may realease a preview version. Can't really blame them. The folks at Black Widow know what they're doing. While their focus seems to be on getting this product done, they might yet release some other mods onto this page. --64.110.207.15 16:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved Hostile Intent

Hostile Intent was previously in the released section, while accurate...this is a HL1 mod. Their HL2 Mod HI: Phonenix Rising, is yet to be released. I moved and renamed it.--64.179.161.11 22:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


thanks --Bic-B@ll 07:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Protect?

I believe we should protect this article from edits, since it has been linked through Digg and Steam. I know people won't be able to contribute new additions to the list, but it would help against malicious edits and it'd be helpful to people who are on RC patrol. --Victor 05:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be strongly against this. This page is a good introduction into the Wiki model for thousands of incoming newbies from Steam. And we have seen lots of valuable edits from anonymous users. I reported the status of this page to various admins and counter-vandalism units and they are keeping a vigilant watch, so there's really no need to protect it. --Cyde Weys votetalk 17:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

World at War

Would anyone be interested in helping me co-create the World at War (HL2) wiki page? It would need to be disambiguated from the other 2 entries. I'm a member of the WaW development team, and could give any support needed as to clarification on information etc. Website is at www.worldatwarmod.com Swatjester 02:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, and I'm a newcomer to editing Wikipedia entries, but Wikipedia frowns upon people involved in article subjects being involved in the editing of articles. --66.214.156.112 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


I'm not the one actually creating the page, which is why I asked for someone to do it here, I just would be ensuring accuracy. ^-- was Swatjester


BTW, I'd like to mention for the record, that you're posting this in the wrong topic. The topic for this section is help with a WaW page. Hence, your comments will now be deleted, where they are off topic. (mine as well)Swatjester 03:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for deleting my comments, very, hm, troll-like of you? I'd suggest you take this up where disputes are resolved if you feel so strongly about it. As I said before, your bias has no place on this article. BTW, when deleting my modifications, please don't fully revert an article, I am making more corrections to the article and every time you revert, it's deleting my modifications and I have to re-edit them in. It's highly annoying, especially since I'm actually trying to improve the article and you're just trying to edit in your bias. --Amiantos 03:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't full revert the article. I edited the comments out manually on the talk page. I should note to you that it is Wikipedia policy not to attack other users personally. Look at your own words. All you are doing is accusing me of bias, while not even bothering to hide your own. Perhaps it is you who should read over the policy more, hmm? Swatjester


Alright guys, I'm going to help mediate this dispute. First I'm going to lay out some things you should know, and then I'm going to need some information from you.

SwatJester - please review What Wikipedia is not. World at War is probably not an appropriate topic for an encyclopedia article. In fact, most of the listed mods with pages, except the extremely notable ones like Garry's Mod, aren't. I have been taking some action on working to get them deleted. The mod World at War already has a really nice website, so a full article on here would be redundant anyway. It is sufficient to link to the mod's website from here.

Okay, now can someone please tell me what World at War is? I'm getting the feeling that it is made by the same development team that made Firearms for Half-Life 1. Is that correct? And I'm also going to need to know what development team is behind Firearms for Half-Life 2 and what that development team has in common (if anything) with the development team of Firearms for Half-Life 1.

Thanks for the information, and please keep things civil. --Cyde Weys votetalk 04:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


From what I can tell from reading various sites, World at War is a Half-Life 2 mod with similarities to Battlefield 1942/Battlefield 2. It has nothing in common with the gameplay of Firearms for Half-Life. The majority of the team from Firearms for Half-Life is working on World at War. (Though not all of the team, from what I can gather.) Firearms 2 for Half-Life 2 is being developed by an entirely different group of people. (Though I cannot verify that there are absolutely no developers from Firearms working on Firearms 2.) Again, from all I can tell, Firearms 2 has nothing in common, property wise, with Firearms. The name, and the spirit, at the two similarities. AFAIC, Firearms 2 is much like Deathmatch Classic or various other mods for games that try to re-create a familiar game on a new platform. There is no official word on legal action from either side. --Amiantos 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

If what you have just said is accurate (which seems to be the case), it sounds like the description of Firearms 2 on this page does merit a disclaimer that it is not being developed by the same people as the original Firearms for Half-Life 1. Additionally it should mention that "World at War" is the Half-Life 2 mod that is being developed by the original Firearms development team. Not acknowledging these facts will lead to confusion in the reader's mind. Personally, I played Firearms 1 and until you guys informed me I didn't know that the mod I would be interested in is World at War, not Firearms 2. --Cyde Weys votetalk 04:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)



Thank you. World at War is a major Half-Life 2 mod. It has direct support from Valve (though no contract yet), hence why I feel it should deserve inclusion, as the sheer population of it's interest (evident both on the website stats and forum registrations) is also worth inclusion.

World at War (aka WaW) is being created by Ben, Alex, and Chaz, the 3 lead developers of Firearms for Halflife (aka FA 1, or FA). It is not a sequel, nor is it in any way related to Firearms. It DOES however, have many members of the final FA development team as members. The owners of the Firearms name, under contractual agreement from Valve, Ben (and to a lesser extent, Alex), decided NOT to produce a sequel to Firearms, and instead move on to their new creation World at War.

A group of disgruntled firearms players hacked the firearms forums, deleted all the website access for the development team, and stole the source code. They are now creating their own mod, Firearms 2, for half-life 2, in direct competition with World at War, using the Firearms name. The original Firearms team (now the World at War team) did not authorize this in any way, and are claiming ownership to the name.

My whole place in this is as a member of the World at War team, though I was not a member of the Firearms team, and as a forum administrator for the old firearms forums (hacked and stolen by the firearms 2 team.) I am also a personal friend of the WaW team leader (by personal I mean, not on the internet, I know him from the offline world.)

As I've said on my talk page, I do not want to delete the Firearms 2 link, that was an accident due to the Wiki site giving me trouble. It obviously deserves prima facie inclusion into this article, it is after all, an unrelease multiplayer mod. What I want to do is to make sure that there is a clear, and semi-detailed tag along with the firearms 2 about the World at War team's claim of intellectual property theft, and that the Firearms name properly and legally belongs to only 2 people: Ben and Alex (who are now the World at War team leaders).

Now, regardless of all of that, there is a second issue. The second issue is that, in this section of the talk page, I'm only asking for 1 thing: That someone create a wikipedia page for the World at War mod, as it is frowned upon that I do it myself. It was taken off track by comments relating to the above dispute, and I deleted them as they belong elsewhere.

Are we clear now? Swatjester


(Oh and in answer to your question Amiantos, Firearms 2 has only 1 ex-Firearms team member, Eric, who quit sometime around 2.0, and relinquished his position on the team long ago, several years ago. World at War, however, has Alex, Ben, Chaz, Marty, Prowl, and Sulsa, all of who were FA team members until it was shutdown.


-edit- Gah! Stop nano-ing me!!!! I'd like to get this through!!! Swatjester 04:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth you could have easily inserted the mod description on your own. I bet over 50% of the mods on this page were inserted by developers who saw the link in Steam and realized this was an easy way for them to get noticed. WP:AUTO is more of a suggestion than a steadfast rule. There's also shades of difference between editing an article about yourself and inserting all sorts of unverified claims which are by definition "original research" and adding your work to a list of similar work. --Cyde Weys votetalk 04:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I know. But I wasn't talking about inserting a mod description. I was requesting help creating a new WaW entry. BTW, I fixed your WaW entry to reflect the fact that while it receives Valve support, it is not under contract. Swatjester 04:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see my reasoning on this page and your talk page on why I do not think World at War is an appropriate subject for a Wikipedia article, yet. Simply put, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of general knowledge. Not everything in existence belongs in Wikipedia. There has been a strong precedence on Wikipedia that articles on videogame mods currently in development should be deleted. Wait at least until World at War is released. If it becomes popular it probably will deserve its own article. And yes, Wikipedia is being a piece of crap tonight and I'm getting all those same errors you're getting. --Cyde Weys votetalk 05:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so don't make it. I was putting the request here, to see if someone would be interested. Hopefully, there will be consensus that it is worth it. I personally feel that it is popular enough at this point to warrant one, but what can I do? oh well. PS, wikipedia IS pissing me off tonight Swatjester 06:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

How can World at War be "popular"? It's not even released yet. Wait until it's at least released and then re-evaluate whether it deserves an article. --Cyde Weys votetalk 06:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm looking at the forums right now, and they have almost 1000 users, with almost 7000 threads, and over 166,000 posts. I'd say that's pretty popular already. Show me a forum that has had 151 users logged in at once that isn't considered "popular". Swatjester 07:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has different standards than you may be used to. See WP:WEB for more information. But 1,000 registered users is way below the threshhold for a website being notable. --Cyde Weys votetalk 03:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Collation rules

While trying to keep up an alphabetical order, I stumbled across some complications.

Examples:

  • "I, robot" (I used the dictionary method here, striking the comma and space in my mind for the purpose of sorting.)
  • "HL2" (I expanded the abbreviation in my mind, especially since both "HL2" and "Half-Life 2" are used in mod names.)
  • "The Battle Grounds" (I ignored "The" at the beginning of mod names.)

Pizzahut2 16:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

They Hunger Lost Souls

Nevermind, didn't notice the other discussion topic.

Hoaxes, Dead with releases and DOA Mods

I did a search with Google Images today, "half-life 2 modifications", and on the first page alone several mods not mentioned here came back such as, Resident Evil:Antidote, Urban Combat, MechMod, Strider, Block Party (aka Legoland)... This raised several questions for me, "Were some of these added and removed? Maybe some are hoaxes? Some maybe are just dead while others are dead, but may have released something playable." Instead of trying to sort through them and add them myself, since I am not at a system that I can test them on anyway ATM, I decided to raise this subject. Is there any way we can have a running list of dead(DOA), dead with releases and hoax mods? Maybe not on the main entry page but possibly somewhere behind the scenes, kind of like a sticky used in forums, so that people don't add things that have already been removed or that turn out to be DOA or hoaxes? I just signed up for Wikipedia today to contribute to this list specifically after that search and have not read all of the documentation for it. Please point out any resource that I have missed that already provides this information in a straight forward fashion and delete this Subject if necessary. Maybe this could be a secondary list. I dunno, let me know. Steveah 18:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Minor editing

Under the Art of Ascension mod, someone put "Note: Very few users."

I feel that this was not good promotion for this mod, and removed this. Also, being a player of this mode, there are people that play it every day, and the sites "user rankings" show that a large amount of people play the game daily (as it has a "last seen playing" stat)

I also added a description to Codename: Osiris (I am a mod member) that might be a bit larger. If anyone thinks so, please inform me and I'll try to cut it down more.

Garry's Mod in SP?

I agree it might be a bit redundant, but since Garry's Mod can be played in single player, it might be worth adding to the single player list.

Minor Edit

I removed "The mod is around 50% complete." from the Black Mesa mod listing because the game developers have announced that value to be incorrect. My browser updated the article before I could finish typing the edit summary. Redgrassbridge 20:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Notability

Since this is a mere list, rather than an actual article, does this mean that all released mods can be listed, or just the notable ones? E.g. one reason The Island got removed from this list was notability. The other reason, "spam blocked website", did not lead to the deletion of Ravenholm, which is also hosted on the same spam blocked domain (*.wz.cz). --Pizzahut2 15:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I removed The Island because it is about the least notable mod for Half-Life 2. No media attention since its initial release. And having played it, it's a very poor mod with minimal original content. Basically you walk around and shoot at zombies with very limited ammo. Biased review I know, but this is the reason for a lack of notability. Plus I just wanted to be able to save the damned page. Ziggur 23:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Half-Life 2: Assault

I removed HL2:Assault from the List of Released Multiplayer Mods list. Its website has been unoperational for some time, and without a website it isn't notable enough to be included here. Héous 21:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Shores Of Glory Cancelled

Unfortunately, the planned multiplayer modification Shores Of Glory was cancelled due to unknown reasons. The site no longer exists and, therefore, I propose it be removed from the list.

-VonV

I, Robot Mod Cancelled

I have removed this mod from the unreleased multiplayer mod list as the mod has been abandoned and cancelled.--65.255.130.104 20:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)VonV

Should these mods be added?

Kuma Games apparently produces advertising sponsored episodic/mini games. Recently they started producing Half-Life 2 mods.[3] I don't really want advertising software on my PC, so I won't try/review these.

ProDoD seems to be a mod of DoD:S, not sure if it's dependent on Half-Life 2 at all. However it's a "Source Mod" (a mod of a Valve game which uses the Source engine) and has to be installed into the same folder as the Half-Life 2 mods. --Pizzahut2 13:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Both are deserving of addition. Kuma Games released Kuma War, a commercially produced published game. ProDoD is a mod of DoD:s used by CAL, DoD:S is itself a hl2 mod. SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 21:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Firearms 2 edit by Swatjester

Not taking any sides, but like it or not, FA2 is a sequel of the original FA, even if it's not done by the original developers. Besides, last time I checked, it was a single developer who said something along the lines that it's not up to the original team to decide which is the official successor, but if it *was* (subjunctive), he'd give FA:S his approval. So in my opinion it is not justified to deny the heritage of FA2, while adding it to FA:S. --Pizzahut2 23:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's the source for my above statement: "In closing, I must restate that the Firearms name is no longer mine to give. Nor is it Ben's. However, my team and I were greatly pleased by having our approval actively sought by x^18 and Issa, people who valued our input and our history. Barring FA:S update #2 consisting of them drowning puppies, they seem to be worthy people. Were it within my power to pick successors for FA, I'd pick them." [4] --Pizzahut2 01:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Pizzahut2....I was on the FA team. See the very bottom of the official website. FA2 is NOT a sequel of FA. It doesn't even include the same weapons list. Our blessing went to FA:S, not FA2. SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 02:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, that "single developer" was the project leader of both Firearms and World at War, it's replacement. It's the most credible source out there. It's up to the original team to decide who makes a sequel. I really really liked Top Gun...if I decide to make a Top Gun 2 with my Sony camcorder, does that make it an official sequel? No it does not. It's no different in the development community: We hold the rights to the name, we decide who's an official sequel. SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 03:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

RPA. SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 07:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)